


Don't Be Afraid To Steal (Just Steal The Right Stuff)

by TheKidFromYesterday



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Art Theif!AU, Art Thief!Phil, But they're only mentioned in the news, Dan has a history, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Family Issues, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, I really hope this is good, IT'S ONLY 18 CHAPTERS, Innocently sharing a bed, M/M, Slow Burn, So does Phil, Someone dies, They both need a Hug, They go to France at some point, They're both kind of idiots, angsty angsty angsty, but there is a happy ending, just a heads up, minor character injury, this is finished but stupid AO3 isn't letting me show that, whether or not they get together is up to you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-09-21 16:54:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 33,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9558296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKidFromYesterday/pseuds/TheKidFromYesterday
Summary: “Dan Howell.”  He stuck his hand out to Phil’s father, shaking it with enthusiasm.  “You called?”  He grinned and his gaze moved over to Phil.  “You must be Lester!”  He held his hand out to Phil as well, but Phil made a point to only look at it and then bring his gaze back to Dan’s face.“It’s Phil.”“Great to meet you, Phil.”  Dan smiled, seeming unfazed by Phil’s rudeness.  “You’re my new partner, right?”OrThe one where Dan and Phil are reluctantly paired up to work together on a particularly difficult missing artwork case and find that maybe they're not as different from each other as they think.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well! This is exciting, I love writing chaptered fics. I hope you enjoy this story, as it's been sitting in my mind for months now. I'll try to update it every week, but we all saw how terrible I was at that while writing My Love is on The High Seas. So no promises.  
> The title is a quote by Mike Monteiro. I thought it was rather fitting.

No matter how many times he did it, breaking and entering never really sat right with Phil.

Sure, he had a lot of practice and a very reasonable excuse for doing it, but it always felt wrong when he broke off a lock or disabled some alarm that was supposed to be alerting the homeowners of his presence. Maybe it was a moral thing. Maybe it was a long concealed fear of the guilt that would come along with doing his job wrong. Maybe it was just the thought of the small chance of letting his dad down if the job didn’t go exactly as planned. 

Whatever it was, Phil usually did his best to ignore the feeling, as he knew that it would do him no good while he actually tried to do his job.

Phil was a thief, of sorts. 

Ever since he was young, he had worked under his father and his strict orders, believing the claim that his father was just ‘trying to make him into a better person’. 

Phil shook his head, pushing the thoughts away until he actually had the time to focus on them. As he stood at the entrance of the estate, he decided that he had more important things to worry about.

The gates were easily fifteen feet tall, their sharp designs serving double as a defense and reaching high into the stormy clouds that waited overhead. It wasn’t raining, but the sky seemed to be holding the threat of it above Phil’s head, letting him know how easy it would be to suddenly drench him in water. He ignored them. 

He was very good at that.

The gates didn’t have a visible weakness or opening, but Phil hadn’t expected them to. That would have been easy, and if Phil knew anything, he knew that the word ‘easy’ was not the right word with which to describe his job.

Instead of searching for an easy way in, he allowed his mind to drift back to the map of the estate, which he had spent the past few weeks studying whenever he had a chance. There was no way to enter the grounds from the front, but there was a way to get in that the cooks and cleaners used, the estate owner preferring to have the help invisible to the public eye. 

Phil kept himself from rolling his eyes. Only someone as obsessed with his wealth as Mr. Leonard Sonata would want to keep his workers away from the public eye, and although fighting for the cooks and maids and butlers was not the Phil’s mission, he still felt an anger churning in his stomach. 

He made his way to the left of the gates in search of the hidden entrance, taking care to avoid where he knew the cameras were placed. If he was correct—and he almost always was—the cameras would feed directly to a screen located inside the house, alerting anyone who saw it of who was outside the gates. The last thing Phil needed was for the job to be any harder than it actually was. 

He found the door with ease, but only because he already knew where it was located. If he hadn’t studied the map with such intent earlier, Phil was sure he would have never guess the location of the door. 

It opened easily, without so much as a creak, and Phil nodded in satisfaction. He just hoped that no alarms had been added at this door in the last time he checked on their info. The door led to the kitchen, and for a moment, Phil was taken back at the size of it. The fireplace that stood beside the door to get into the main house was huge, and would have easily allowed three of Phil sitting side by side. There were two ovens opposite it, and cabinets and shelves lined the walls that were available. Pots and pans hung from the ceiling on racks and the cooking utensils had their own place as well, sticking out of carefully placed pots and jars like flowers out of a vase. Phil didn’t miss the observation, and smiled at the thought for a moment before pushing the thought out of his head. 

Now is not the time for thoughts like this, he berated himself, forcing his chin up and focusing his attention on any possible traps that would make noise or alert the people in the house of his presence. The floor ahead of him was relatively clear of any obstacles, and he silently thanked the people who cleaned the kitchen for doing their job so well.

As he made his way to the door that led to the rest of the house, Phil hesitated for a moment.

Leonard Sonata was an art collector. Or, at least that’s what he claimed. That would have been fine if he hadn’t been lying about how he acquired the art works. He had found a way to deflect all the blame, somehow keeping his name clean for years. 

Phil and the entire organization knew the truth, about how he and his family before him had stolen precious artworks and kept them as their own personal collection. No matter how many times the police or the government had been alerted of this, the Sonata family had somehow always gotten off the hook. The house had been searched, the family itself questioned, but nothing had ever been found. 

This job was what Phil had been working up to for his whole life. For years, he had heard stories of the infamous Leonard Sonata along with his entire family, about how he was impossible to catch, impossible to outwit. He was a genius, and although he used his gift for crime, Phil found that he couldn’t avoid being impressed by him. He had grown up wishing that he possessed that same sort of genius, promising himself that he would use it for good. 

And now. 

Now he was inside the house that he had studied for years, he was only moments away from actually beginning the job that he had wanted ever since he had heard the name of the man. 

Too many people in the organization had returned from attempts to put Mr. Sonata behind bars with only defeated shakes of their heads. Too many people had failed at what should have been an easy job. Phil was not going to be one of those people.

He couldn’t let all those people down. He was among the best in the organization, maybe even the best. Presumptuous, but probably true. And he couldn’t let his father down, not after it had taken him so long to prove that he was ready for a job of this size.

Taking in a deep breath, Phil turned the knob of the door and stepped out of the neatly organized kitchen and into the house.

It was beautiful.

Cold, but beautiful.

Ornate rugs covered the floor, paving the way to a stone staircase that wound up to a second story. The ceiling arched high above Phil’s head, the designs on the walls leading his eyes up to the top of the room, where a gaudy chandelier hung on what seemed to be a too small chain. Phil suspected that a single hit to that chain would send the chandelier plummeting to the floor, but before he could think too deeply on that, he caught sight of a line of oil painted portraits of what looked like a family line. 

He approached, making special care to make his footsteps as silent as possible, so as not to alert whoever may be in the house at the moment. His resources had said that it would only be Mr. Sonata and a few live in maids and cooks, but Phil didn’t want to risk anything.

As he made his way up to the closest painting, he took in the severe look that was painted onto the man’s face, forever looking disapprovingly at whoever looked at his picture. Phil glanced down at the plaque, which read: George M. Sonata 1879-1937.

The next painting was of a man of similar features, although with the name Paul S. Sonata and the dates reading 1900-1948. 

Phil walked down the line of paintings, presumably the Sonata bloodline, taking in the sheer amount of people on the wall alone, which didn’t seem to be counting wives, other siblings or cousins. At the end of the line, Leonard D. Sonata glared down at Phil the end date of his life not yet filled in. The painting was the same as the printed out copy that Phil himself had seen so many times when he was looking at the case, but it looked different now that he was looking at it in person. 

As he was about to turn away to actually work on the job he was being paid to do, Phil caught sight of one last painting to Leonard’s right. 

Daniel J. Sonata.

No date was below his name, and as Phil’s eyes traveled up, he saw that there was also no painting. 

Leonard had a son? 

As Phil wracked his brains for an answer, he finally remembered something about the man having a wife and child a long time ago, but there had never been any new information about them. Phil understood why, as he wouldn’t have wanted his family to be out in the public eye either, especially if the family was under as much scrutiny as the Sonatas were.

He tucked the name of the son into his mind, promising himself to remember to add it to the list of information they currently had on the Sonata family. 

A small noise from up the stairs had Phil immediately springing into action, silently reprimanding himself for letting himself get so distracted, especially on such an important job. Ducking behind one of the impressively large potted plants, Phil kept his head down and his ears on alert in case anyone actually came down the stairs. 

After a minute of silence, he allowed himself to stand and breathe out a silent sigh of relief. No more mistakes.

As he recalled the map of the house, Phil followed his memory behind the staircase to where he knew a door waited that led to the maid’s room. The room possessed a dumbwaiter that connected to the second floor. Taking the stairs may be easier, but Leonard’s bedroom was located right at the top and that’s not where Phil was planning on going. On the other side of that floor, opposite the bedroom, was where the safe would be. 

The safe with the latest missing painting that Phil was after, The Ghent Altarpiece. 

The painting--the masterpiece--had been stolen many times before, and was still incomplete due to it. One of the panels was missing, and had been since 1934. No one knew where the panel was, not since the self proclaimed thief died with the knowledge of where it was, without telling anyone. 

Within the past year, the Altar Piece had been stolen again, much to the frustration of St. Bavo's Cathedral and it’s patrons, which was where the painting had been previously housed. Although there was little proof that the Sonata’s were in possession of the painting, there was also a large chance that they were and it didn’t hurt to check. As there would have been little time to move the painting to a second location where (presumably) the other stolen art was located, the Altar Piece would have been at the actual house of Leonard Sonata.

Phil desperately hoped that their reasoning was correct.  
Somehow, he made it up the dumbwaiter without any problems, surprising even himself. Although his work required him to be silent, he couldn’t deny that he was probably the most clumsy person in the universe. As he climbed out of the too small elevator and into an empty bedroom, he silently thanked whoever was out there looking out for him that it had been empty. As far as he knew, Leonard had no guests at the moment, but there it was still risky. 

For a moment, Phil glanced around the room. It was old, and looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for years. It was clearly a child’s room, although with a queen sized bed fitting in with the toy chest and bookcase full of fiction novels. A few picture frames stood on the bedside table and the bookcase, but they were all empty despite looking old and used. The room looked like it hadn’t been touched in years, and Phil wondered when the last time someone was in it was.

Phil guessed that the room had belonged to Daniel, or perhaps another child of Leonard’s that had been kept a secret. As he was making his way out of the room, one of the books caught his interest, and against his better judgment, he plucked it out of the bookcase. It was an art book, one that would normally be found in a classroom, outlining important works and teaching about the artist’s history. 

Was Daniel, or another child, learning to take up the family business? Or was it just a coincidence? Would Leonard start his child off at such a young age?

He flipped through the book, finding pieces of art that he knew so well after years of studying them, along with notes in a messy handwriting that he could barely make out. There were doodles in every available space, little aliens and cartoonish dogs and flowers with twining vines that went in between the margins of the sentences. Little notes also took up space, taking the form of song lyrics and simple rhyming couplets of the art piece that mocked the artist or the style. The whole air of the book was bitter and bored, and Phil wondered why.

After hesitating for a moment, he pulled out another book, this time a novel and flipped through it. No doodles, no words, not even an accidental line lay on the pages. 

It only took Phil a few seconds before he stuffed the art book into his bag and replaced the novel in the bookshelf, not thinking about either for very long before he made his way out of the bedroom, determined to explore the book in more detail when he got back to the base. 

The hallway was just as decorated as the downstairs area, and Phil cringed at the gaudiness of it. At the end of the hallway, there was a door that led to what Phil knew was the office. In the office, behind a painting on the wall, was a safe.

He needed to get to that safe.

He was going off the knowledge from another failed mission, but he was fairly certain that it was accurate. At least, he hoped it was. 

He entered the office with a gracefulness and stealth that would have impressed a ninja, closing the door behind him in complete silence. For a moment, he allowed himself to smile at his accomplishment. 

Good job, Phil.

The office was large, and most of the far side of the room was taken up by a massive desk. Behind it though, was a painting that was easily fifteen feet in height. 

He was so close.

As he approached the painting, his heart trapped in his throat, a sound came from the hallway behind him.

Oh no.

Oh please, no, not now.

He dashed to the window and unlocked it in case he needed a getaway, but he didn’t leave just yet. He ducked behind the desk, calming his breathing so that he was silent as he heard a vague mumbling from outside the door. Whoever was out there was too far away to be heard properly, but they were obviously approaching the room, and as there were no other rooms this far down the hallway, there was no other destination. 

Phil’s heart sank as he realized that there was no way he could get out of the situation without being caught, not with the painting anyway. He didn’t even need the painting, that was just an added bonus. If he could just see the Altar Piece and then alert the authorities, then Sonata would be put behind bars anyway. 

The door opened, and Phil fought to keep calm. He was fine. He had definitely been in worse situations.

“Hello?” 

The voice made Phil shiver. He knew Leonard Sonata. The man had been interviewed on tv, had spoken live multiple times, and had even recorded an audio book. If it weren’t for his interest in stealing priceless works of art, the man might have been nice.

“Damn wind.” The man muttered, and Phil imagined the man in a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, a grumpy look on his face from being woken in the middle of the night. “Need to get these windows fixed soon.”

The obvious sound of a lock closing felt like a punch to Phil’s gut, but he stayed hidden. 

He was trapped.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm updating again before thursday because I kind of want to kick this story off with more for ya'll to read. So here's chapter two! This is still Phil's POV

Phil lay awake in his bed all night, too tired to be productive, but too awake to fall asleep.

He had failed. 

Sure he had gotten out of the house alright, and as far as he knew, Mr. Sonata hadn’t even known that he had been in inside, but still, he had failed. The Altar piece could have been behind that painting, or it could have been in Japan for all Phil knew. He hadn’t been able to find it before Leonard had entered the room, now having no proof that the painting was even in the man’s possession. 

After he had left, Phil had been so close to pushing aside the painting to find the safe, but footsteps had once again sounded outside the door, this time more than one, and he had been forced to leave without catching a glimpse of the masterpiece.

Once he had gotten back to the base, he had only given his father a brief shake of his head before disappearing into his room without talking to anyone. 

He was exhausted, and whether that was from the disappointment of his failure or the lack of sleep for the past few days, he didn’t know. 

The shock had set in about half an hour ago, and Phil was left lying on his back, his mind showing him all the ways he could have actually succeeded in his mission. The main downstairs room, the bedroom, the office——if he hadn’t stopped and looked around the rooms, he probably would have had enough time to get the Altar Piece and left with time to spare.

The bedroom.

Remembering the art book from the room, Phil rolled to his side and grabbed his bag where it lay beside his bed, rummaging around a bit before finding the book and pulling it out. He sat up in his bed, propping up the pillow against the wall so that he could lean back in comfort.

He opened the book he noticed immediately the hastily scrawled ‘Dan Sonata’ on the inside cover, confirming Phil’s suspicions of the owner of the book. As he flipped to the first page, he frowned at the expanse of doodles. A rose, drawn with careful detail, sat at the top corner and vines snaked away from it, despite the flower not matching the rest of the plant. Phil smiled, taking in the stick figure on the second page with the little mess of hair and a ‘BORED’ connected to him in a little thought bubble. 

The book was equally made up of pictures and descriptions, but no matter what was displayed on the page, Daniel’s drawings were consistent. They were surprisingly good, overlapping and mixing together to create a complex arrangement that Phil found himself drawn to. The dedication to defacing the book was impressive, but as Phil turned more and more pages, he found that the drawings began to lose their lighthearted look. 

Smiley faces turned to sad faces on the stick figures that decorated the margins, and song lyrics popped up, outlining less than happy ideas and themes. Phil frowned at a wilted flower that stood under a full moon, taking in the lonely song lyrics beside the drawing. Obviously, Daniel wasn’t the happiest of kids, but Phil dismissed it as a stereotypical teenager thing. 

Teenagers were rebellious, right? He had to admit that he had never gone through that, too scared of his father to cross him, but other kids did that, he was sure of it. 

But as he got nearer to the end of the book, Phil saw that the drawings were getting worse. Beside one painting of some holy man, a detailed drawing that depicted two men standing across from each other, one with a gun, the other with a hole in his head. Another drawing showed a terrified looking woman, her arms up to protect herself. 

Phil chewed his lip.

That wasn’t normal, was it?

He turned the page, and found that it was an entire page of words, but behind the words was an intricate drawing of a man hunched over, crouching on the floor with his face buried in his hands, his clothes torn and his feet bare. It was breathtaking, but heartbreaking as well. The boy was obviously unhappy, as Phil had suspected, but he hadn’t thought a book of doodles would have yielded so much information. 

Was Daniel okay now? Where was he? 

Phil turned the page again, but it was devoid of doodles or words. Only art. By flipping through the rest of the book, he found that the drawings ended with that desperate drawing of the man. Phil went back to it, taking in the perfectly drawn proportions and the truly incredible way that Daniel had captured the desperation in the man’s figure. The boy was talented, but Phil was beginning to worry about him. 

No doubt he was troubled, but had he gotten better? Was he even still alive?

The thought made Phil shiver and he hastily shut the book, shoving it into his bag again. He had learned enough about the boy, he just needed to not think for a bit. Grabbing his headphones and iPod, he turned the volume up to the perfect level, loud enough to keep out sound so that the song was the only thing he could focus on. 

He lay back on his bed, shutting his eyes with the purpose of ignoring everything and listened.

****

“So you got into the office, yet you still came back here empty handed?”

Phil shrank back at the obviously disappointed tone of his father, although he did his best not to show it. If there was anyone he hated disappointing, it was his father. It only made the situation worse that his father was also the head of the organization.

“I know.” He mumbled, aware that he wasn’t acting like the professional he and his father both knew he was. 

“I can’t believe this—” The man raised his fists up to the air for a moment, almost like he was about to curse the heavens, but decided against it. “You were the best we had, Philip. The best!”

Phil almost glowed at the praise, but remembered that he was being berated. 

“And now you come back to me with no more information than anyone else, despite spending almost three years on this case!” The man sat down heavily, rubbing his forefinger and thumb over his eyes. “What the fuck were you doing there that caused you to run out of time?”

Phil flinched at the curse, but quickly brushed it off. Right now, this man was not his father. Right now, he was Phil’s boss and nothing more. For a moment, he considered bringing up the art book that he had found in Daniel’s room, but something inside of him made him hesitate. It may have been the knowledge that the book yielded no useful information about Leonard at all, or the childish want——the need——to know about something that no one else did. Phil stayed silent.

“Look,” The boss sighed, “You were the best we had. Obviously, none of the professionals can get this job done on their own,” He shot a pointed look at Phil, who wanted nothing more than to curl up on himself and hide from the glare of the man. “So I’m bringing in someone to help.”

“What?” Phil stood, “No, sir, you don’t mean——”

“You’re getting a partner, whether you like it or not.”

Phil considered muttering a ‘I don’t’, but he figured the response would be a little too childish, even for him.

“I’ve already looked into this guy, he’s a good kid. You two’ll work well together.”

“You already looked into him? Before I even got back?” The information packed a punch in Phil’s gut. His dad hadn’t thought that Phil could pull the job off, even before he had gotten finished. “I thought I was the best.”

“You were.” The boss shrugged, “This kid just might be better.” He didn’t stop to notice the hurt and shock on his son’s face. “I’m not risking him going in alone, so I’m putting to two of you together.”

“Dad——”

The man sighed.

“Sir,” Phil amended quickly, “Please. Don’t pair me up with someone, not again.” He tried not to think too deeply on what had happened the last time he had a partner. “Give the new guy to someone else, I work alone.”

“You didn’t always.” The boss pointed out. “And this isn’t your decision to make. You’re the best we have right now, so I’m putting you with the new kid.” He stood up, tossing a folder in Phil’s direction. “He comes in tomorrow. Play nice.” He made his way to the door, not even bothering to look back at where his son sat, with the cursed folder lying in front of him.

As the door closed behind the man, Phil allowed himself to deflate. 

He was going to be working with a partner again. As he thought more and more about it, he did his best to ignore the memories that welled up in his mind. What right did his father have to stick him with another person and expect them to work together? Phil hadn’t even met the guy, and from the way his father had described him, he was young. 

And apparently better at his job than Phil was.

Phil groaned and lay his head down on the table glaring at the offending folder that lay on the table in front of him. He didn’t want to open it. He didn’t want to see the person who was replacing him. 

After working for his father’s organization for as long as he could remember, giving literally everything that he had to it, he hadn’t thought he would be downgraded so soon. To some people, having a partner was a wonderful thing. It was someone that could be trusted, someone to be at your side through everything. Some people dreamed about being put with a partner, because two was better than one, right?

But no one ever mentions that after having a partner for so long, being alone again will ruin you.

No, not right now.

Phil sighed and pushed the thought out of his mind, instead grabbing the folder and flipping it open. Inside was a page of information about his new partner——Phil shuddered at the thought——along with a picture of him. 

Phil’s eyes automatically jumped to the picture before reading about the man, and for a moment, his breath caught. The man was gorgeous, almost to the point of it being unfair.

He was obviously younger than Phil, with black earings and a mess of curls heaped on top of his head. His posture looked terrible, and Phil rolled his eyes at that, remembering the many times his trainers had yelled at him for that exact same problem. Looking back at the picture, Phil noticed that Dan’s mouth was trapped in a smirk that showed off an impressive dimple, but as confident as the man seemed to look, his eyes showed something else.

He was hurting, obviously, although it was mostly concealed. Phil wondered if he would have even noticed if he hadn’t been trained in observing people in the way he had.

The name below the picture read Dan Howell, and Phil thought back to the art book that had belonged to a Dan Sonata. Dan Howell’s information was sparse, but Phil figured there must be more to him than just a single page, as his father was not one to hire someone on a whim. 

He wondered if he’d ever get to know more about his new partner, but the thought only lasted for a moment before he reminded himself that he wasn’t going to let himself get to know this man any more than he had to.

There was no reason to get attached if you know that it’s not going to be permanent. He had learned the hard way that living with no attachments was the easiest way to live, and he wasn’t going to give up that motto for some pretty faced stranger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think so far, thanks for the kudos for the last chapter :) I promise Dan shows up in the next chapter for sure.  
> Come say hi on tumblr: phailingphantastically


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WAS LATE ON THE THIRD CHAPTER UPDATE OF COURSE!  
> who else saw that one coming? I might just update on fridays. that's what i did last time. Anywho, this is also from Phil's POV. Love you! :)

Phil wasn’t happy.

He had two more hours before his new partner arrived at the base, two hours before he was shackled to another person for who knew how long. It was enough to make him want to scream, but he had chosen the library as his temporary hiding place, so that was out of the question.

Hidden between two shelves packed full of dusty books, Phil had Dan’s folder, Leonard’s folder, Dan Sonata’s art book and a stack of books about the Ghent Altar Piece. He had been in the cramped position for more than two hours, flipping back through each of the books or folders, trying to force something——anything——to make sense.

A part of his mind reminded him that once he had a partner, he would also have someone to share the burden with, but he still frowned at the idea. Sure it might make research easier once Dan got there, and he couldn’t help remember how it used to be when he wasn’t constantly alone——

But that didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to get hurt again. He wasn’t going to repeat Jasper.

The name sent shivers down his back, and he fought to push away the bright smile that lit   
up his memory. If Dan was anything like Jasper was, then Phil was screwed, but seeing as Jasper was one in a million, Phil figured he’d be okay. It wasn’t like Dan was going to replace Jasper.

Dan was going to replace Phil.

Phil shook his head at that thought. He was being ridiculous. Sure, he hadn’t succeeded on his last job, but that didn’t mean he was bad at what he did. He had made a mistake, and mistakes meant that he was only human. He was still the best in the organization and that wasn’t going to change once he had Dan with him.

Phil worked himself into a trance, not allowing his mind to wander anywhere other than the research books on the Altar Piece. He already knew almost everything about it, but that didn’t stop him from combing through each book in search of something he missed. He already knew   
Leonard’s file by heart, and he could have used his time to look through Dan’s, but something stopped him.

He didn’t want to know who he would be paired up with. He didn’t want to know anything about the man he was going to be working alongside for who knew how long. He could figure all that out when they actually met in person.

At that thought, Phil glanced up at the clock above the library doors. 

Fifteen minutes before Dan arrived.

Heaving a sigh, Phil carefully placed all the books back in their respective shelves and gathered up the folders and the art book, shoving the latter into his bag. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like there was something to learn about Daniel J. Sonata, and he was determined to find out what it was. 

As he made his way towards the main conference room, Phil made a quick detour to his room to drop off the folder about Dan and his bag, quickly changing into a more formal outfit. He preferred the sweatpants and t-shirt for comfort, but figured at least jeans and a nice shirt would be more of a positive first impression. He didn’t want Dan to think that he was depressed from his failed job. He didn’t want Dan to think anything about him.

Phil got to the conference room five minutes early, and earned himself an approving nod from his father. The room was empty except for the two, and Phil threw himself down on one of the empty chairs across from his father, raising an eyebrow that showed off exactly how much he didn’t want to be there. Sure, he would show up and follow his father’s orders, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. 

The two of them were not close. As long as Phil could remember, he called the man ‘Sir’ and not father or dad or anything of the sort. Phil knew that it wasn’t like that before his mom had died, but as she had died when he was only four, he didn’t have many memories of when they acted like a family. After she was gone, it was only him and his father, and seeing as his mother had been the glue that kept them together, they had fallen apart.

They weren’t good at being family, so they became co-workers, and the familial bond between them broke.

Phil was okay with that, though. He couldn’t complain. If he did as he was told and worked the jobs that he was assigned, then they would be okay. They always had been. 

“Kid’s late.” The man in front of Phil grumbled, glaring down at his watch. “I told him to be here at 1:05 and it’s——”

“Exactly 1:05.” Came a voice from the doorway. 

Phil glanced up and did his best not to choke on his own spit. Dan was even prettier in person than he was in his picture. He leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, not even dressed formally, his hair piled up in curls on the top of his head.

His posture was just was bad in person though, Phil thought to himself.

“Dan Howell.” He stuck his hand out to Phil’s father, shaking it with enthusiasm. “You called?” He grinned and his gaze moved over to Phil. “You must be Lester!” He held his hand out to Phil as well, but Phil made a point to only look at it and then bring his gaze back to Dan’s face. 

“It’s Phil.”

“Great to meet you, Phil.” Dan smiled, seeming unfazed by Phil’s rudeness. “You’re my   
new partner, right?”

Phil nodded, wishing he had dressed less than formal, as Dan seemed to be wearing nothing but skinny jeans and a potato sack. 

“Awesome. You know, I’ve never had a partner before, would you believe that?” The kid couldn’t seem to shut up, and Phil shot a helpless look to his dad, who pointedly ignored it. “Have you had a partner before?” 

Woah, that was too far. “Here.” He tossed Leonard’s folder down on the table. “That’s who we’re after.” He ignored Dan’s puzzled expression and instead stood. “Sir? May I speak with you in private for a moment?”

His father nodded, although looking less than pleased at the idea. “We’ll be back in a moment, Howell.”

Dan nodded, already flipping through the folder. “Sure.”

Phil led the way out of the room, closing the door after them to make sure Dan didn’t listen. “Really? Him?” He pointed at the excitable kid through the glass door, “Out of anyone you could have paired me with, you choose this kid?”

“He’s good at his job.” Phil’s father shrugged. “I put you two together because I know that you’ll work well together.”

“Okay, but——”

“Are you questioning me?”

Phil sighed. “No, sir.”

“Good.” The boss nodded, “Now go back in there and get to know him.” As he turned away, Phil caught him muttering under his breath, “God knows you both need a friend.”

The words hurt a little, but Phil nodded in defeat. “Yes, sir.” 

He only allowed himself a minute more before he made his way back into the conference room where Dan sat on one of the wheelie chairs, spinning back and forth by the tips of his toes.

“Howell.”

“Oh, hey!” Dan immediately stood up, a bright smile on his face and the folder in his hand. “What was that all about?” he gestured out the door.

“Nothing you need to worry about.” Phil brushed the question off, knowing that the answer would have driven him insane, but Dan didn’t seem bothered.

“Alright. So I read through,” he held up the folder, “How far did you get into the house before you had to leave?”

Phil bristled. “I made it to the office.”

“Where the Altar Piece is supposedly located?” Dan looked impressed and Phil took pride in that.

“No, the other office.”

Dan frowned in confusion and Phil sighed.

“Yes, that office.” The kid was starting to get on his nerves. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to work with him before Dan pushed his patience to the limit. 

Silence took over for a moment, before Dan apparently decided that he had had enough of it and spoke. “So we’re gonna be working together for a while, right?”

“Not if I can help it.” Phil said simply. “We’re getting the Sonata job done and after that, we part ways.”

“O-oh.” For the first time since they had met, Dan seemed hesitant, maybe a little taken aback. “Of course.” And then in a second, the too wide smile was back and his eyes lit up. “So this,” He held up the folder again, “Is all we have about this guy?”

Phil nodded, wondering if somehow Dan knew more about this man than he did. Did he have extra information?

“It’s not a lot, is it.” Dan mused, flipping through the pages. “After the multiple jobs you guys did, I figured you’d at least have a little bit more information about him before jumping in headfirst.”

Phil was indignant. Who was Dan to criticize their work? And after only an hour of being with them? “Do you have any helpful ideas as to how to get this job done? Or are you just going to criticize?”

Dan held his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just saying, you have a lot more bravado than I initially thought. There’s almost nothing in this folder. It takes a lot of guts going into a job like that.”

Although it was phrased like a compliment, the words stung and Phil glared at the new kid. “Right, and I suppose you have more information about this job than I do?”

Phil expected Dan to brush off the question, maybe make some joke at Phil’s expense, but instead, he just looked upset. Hurt, almost, like someone had personally insulted something that he loved. “I...no.” He looked defeated for a single moment, but the smile was back in place after only a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t.”

“Yeah,” Phil huffed, “I didn’t think so. Well.” He stood up a little straighter, hoping Dan would follow suit, but the younger stayed in his shoulder hunched position, much to Phil’s annoyance. “I’m heading to my room. I trust you’ll be alright on your own?” He made sure to pack as much sarcasm into his words as possible to ensure that even if Dan did want company at the moment, he knew that Phil wasn’t prepared to supply it. 

“Yeah.” Dan smiled at Phil, although it was a lot less cheerful and optimistic than it had been at the start of the meeting. Phil tried not to feel too bad for the kid.

“Great. I’ll see you when I see you,then.” Phil left the room without looking back, although he could feel Dan’s eyes on him. He felt slightly guilty that he had been such a jerk to Dan, but he honestly didn’t want to get to involved with him. He knew that it only led to one or both of them growing fond of the other and he didn’t want to put either of them through that. 

If Jasper had only...

No, he wasn’t going to do that to himself.

Jasper wasn’t there, and he hadn’t been for years. There was no point in pretending that he was, as that only ever led to hurting more than he normally did. Even as he pushed the thought from his mind, Phil knew for a fact that he would be waking up in the middle of the night once more, shaking and crying with the memories of bright smiles and clear green eyes just out of reach and fading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I got some lovely comments last time, I'm always so happy to get those! :) I've been writing more often lately, and I have multiple chapters written out so I hopefully won't get too far behind. Although, if this week is anything to go off of, I need some help with my time management already :P  
> Have a great week!!  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy thursday!! I hope you all had a good week and smiled and ate something nice or something. Here's another chapter!! Phil's POV, again. I'm very glad that ya'll are enjoying this so far, and your comments and kudos are making me smile so much :D

“So, where were you before you got here?” Phil had spent the last hour and a half trying to find out more about Dan while they researched the Sonata family in the library, searching for something that they had missed. “Were you with another organization?”

Dan shrugged, keeping his eyes on the book in front of him. He was sprawled out on his stomach in front of Phil who sat cross legged, books surrounding them to the point of almost hiding them from the rest of the library. “Not really.” Dan muttered, not even looking up at Phil.

“Oh.” Phil tried to go back to the book in his hands, frowning when he realized that he’d read through the entire thing at least twice before. “Cool.”

Dan didn’t elaborate, and Phil dropped the subject for a moment.

After the first day of knowing each other, Dan had changed slightly. He was still friendly to the point of being annoying, but his smile was slightly faded now. He no longer seemed overly excited about getting to know Phil, and seemed resigned to just working together and not being friends. Although it was what Phil had wanted, he was starting to regret pushing the kid away. 

He watched the top of Dan’s head as he read, wondering what was going on in his mind. Was that friendly greeting been only a facade? Was this the real Dan? Phil wasn’t sure which version he preferred.

“Did, um,” Dan broke the silence and Phil hastily turned back to his book and hid his blushing face behind it. “Did Sonata have any kids?”

The question was out of the blue, but Phil didn’t wonder about it. “I think he had one. Daniel.” For a moment, he considered showing Dan the art book that he had hidden up in his room, but decided against it. It was small, but it was something that he felt like he could keep to himself. He wanted to get to know that Daniel Sonata. He wanted to make sure he was okay. “Why?”

“Just wondering.” Dan glanced up at him, resting his chin in his hand. “It doesn’t say anything about him having kids in these books. How do you know?”

Phil felt his cheeks go a bit pink. “I, uh, when I went into the house a few days ago. I ended up in the kid’s room and saw his name.” He didn’t bring up the fact that he had been snooping through the kid’s belongings. “I got out of there quick though.”

“Hm.” Dan didn’t sound very interested, but his eyes seemed old for a second. Like they were those of an old man who had seen too much. “Daniel.” Dan nodded and went back to reading and his eyes were back to normal. 

“Yeah.” 

Silence took over for the rest of their shared time in the library, the only sounds being that of turning pages and the occasional groan of annoyance after reading another useless book. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable silence, per se, but it was far preferable to any attempts at conversation.

*****

Phil was starting to cherish the time he had alone.

Almost everywhere he went, Dan was already there. It was like their minds were somehow synced and they didn’t even need to tell each other where they were going. Dan laughed at it, waving to Phil whenever they somehow ended up in the same room without telling the other, but Phil always gave a quick wave before leaving. It wasn’t that he hated Dan. He didn’t. He just hated what Dan was replacing and a part of Phil’s mind still didn’t think of the kid as his actual partner.

He had begun to spend more time alone in his room, knowing it was one of the single places that Dan would not already be when he walked in. It had become his safe haven, and his room was a mess because of it. 

Papers were strewn across his floor, along with files and books that were opened halfway to reveal what Phil had been thinking before he abandoned them. A picture of Leonard was pinned across from his bed, the formal, unyielding glare staring down at him as he woke up. It reminded him of what his goal was. The art book lay beside his bed on a small table, open to the last drawing in the book. The hunched over figure was what Phil stared at before he went to bed, his mind offering up different explanations as to where the boy might be. It was slightly worrying how much he thought about the missing boy, but he brushed it off as concern. 

As Phil entered his room at the end of the day, exhausted with dealing with Dan while they researched in the library, he almost slipped on a loose sheet of paper by the door.

He cursed, straightening himself and checking his balance before shutting the door behind him. 

Spending time with Dan was hard, he found. It wasn’t like the boy was particularly exhausting on his own. Under different circumstances, they may have even gotten along, but the problem was that spending time with Dan reminded Phil of Jasper, and it almost hurt when he saw how similar and different the two of them were. Phil almost hated the times that Dan smiled wide because his dimple would show up and suddenly Phil was nineteen again, and in love with a boy he didn’t know would leave him. It hurt when he saw Jasper in Dan, and even though he tried to ignore it, he ended up dreaming about his old partner more and more. 

He knew that he wasn’t being fair to Dan by acting like a jerk to him, but Phil found it hard to care. It would be better for the both of them to not get attached, just in case something should happen to one of them and the other found themselves alone. Besides, Phil wasn’t quite sure he trusted Dan either.

The kid knew something about the Sonata family that he wasn’t sharing with anyone else, and Phil wasn’t sure what to think of it. He wanted to report him, but there was no proof that he was keeping information. It seemed like he already knew everything about the case, even before Phil told him about it. He nodded along to new information like he’d heard it a hundred times before and Phil had only managed to surprise him once. Dan knew nothing about the murders that were partially linked to Leonard, and had even seemed like he didn’t believe it when Phil told him.

Phil had taken too much pride in that one moment where Dan looked confused.

Sighing, Phil picked his way to his bed, doing his best to avoid the bomb field that had taken over his room. It was almost impossible to take a step without standing on a book or an important paper, but Phil managed to get to his bed with minimal casualties. Frowning when he saw the disapproving glare of a photographed Leonard Sonata from across the room, he turned over onto his side so that he didn’t have to look at it. 

As much as he hated to admit it, Phil needed a break. 

He had worked himself to the bone almost nonstop since before he could remember, and now, after failing the Sonata job, he had only worked harder. Sleep had become a luxury that he only occasionally treated himself to and meal time had disappeared, replaced with quick snacks during the day. Almost constantly he felt as if he’d had twelve espressos in a row, as his hands shook and his whole body was always jittery. His sleep, when he could afford it, was plagued with dreams of Jasper and Dan and sometimes Leonard. Phil was falling apart, but managing to hold himself together as much as he could. 

His eyes closed and he finally relaxed a little, having not stopped working or moving since he had gotten up in the morning, and that had been hours ago. If he could squeeze in a little nap before the meeting at four with Dan and his father to talk about the job... 

It seemed like only seconds later that someone was pounding on his door, a familiar voice calling out his name. Phil groaned, squeezing his eyes shut tighter and willing his dream to come back. He could feel it slipping away but the image of a bright smile and a too deep dimple stayed in his memory. For once, it hadn’t been a bad dream.

“Phil!”

It was definitely Dan behind the door, and never before had Phil wanted to punch the kid as much as he did then.

“I’m not here!” He yelled back, although it came out louder than he had hoped and he found himself waking up a little more than he had expected. Damn.

“Phil, come on, I have to talk to you about something!”

“Wait until the meeting!” Dan was like a dog with a bone, and Phil wished he would just leave him alone.

There was a brief pause before Dan once again spoke, “Phil, it’s like, six. I already met with the boss.”

What?

Phil was out of bed in two seconds, throwing open the door before his mind was even completely awake. “What time is it?”

“Uh,” Dan looked taken aback at how quickly Phil had appeared. “Six.”

Phil groaned and collapsed against the door frame. “How could I have slept so long.”

“It’s okay,” Dan assured him, his hand moving up to rest on Phil’s shoulder, but he brought it back down just before they touched. “I handled it. I told him all we know.” He smiled a little, obviously proud of himself.” “Oh, and I told him that you were still working on something in the library. I didn’t know where you were and the boss isn’t the kind of guy you want to get angry, you know?”

“Yeah.” Phil growled, “I know.” 

How could he have missed the meeting? He hadn’t missed a meeting in his entire life, had never once been late, had never overslept his alarm. For once, he was grateful that he had Dan to watch out for him. 

“You said you wanted to talk to me about something?” Phil pawed a hand across his face, trying to wake up and doing a poor job of it. “Spit it out, Howell.”

“Right, yeah,” Dan held up a folder, grinning widely, “Can I come in?”

Phil raised an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah. If you want to.” He opened the door a little wider and let Dan in, wincing when he saw how messy his room looked. “Shit. Don’t mind the mess.” He made his way over to the bed, discreetly kicking the art book deep underneath and turning back to Dan. “Sit anywhere you can.” He gestured vaguely to the couch that was now home to a stack of books.

He sat himself back on his bed, rubbing at his eyes and fighting a yawn. Sleeping was fine, but waking up. Damn, that was a lot of work.

“Alright, alright.” Dan looked like a kid on Christmas morning, sitting on the edge of his seat with the folder gripped tightly in his hand. “I got us a job.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “We already have a job, dumbass.”

Huh. Phil wondered why he had never noticed that he swore when he was tired. Perhaps it was years of training and living with his dad that taught him to keep a filter over his words. Apparently, all that went out the window when his brain was working at half capacity.

“No, I mean a different job.” Dan held the folder out to him. “It’s a small one, should only take a few weeks. It’s in France.”

Phil took the folder, “France? Why would we get another job when we’re already working on one?”

“The boss said it was a good idea. Said we needed to work together more so that we’re better as a team when we finally do the Sonata job.”

Phil had to admit that it was a good idea, but that didn’t mean that he liked it anymore. “We don’t need this.” He hadn’t even opened the folder, only smacked it lightly against the palm of his other hand. “We work fine together.”

Dan didn’t look like he believed him. “Okay, but this wasn’t my call. I don’t want to go against the boss’s orders.”

“Me neither.” Phil muttered, glaring at the folder. He opened it and scowled at the contents. “I could do this in my sleep.”

“We have to do it together.” Dan looked a little subdued, almost hurt. “It’s the whole point of the thing.”

“Of course it is.” Phil leaned back on one of his elbows and used his other hand to hide a yawn.

Dan watched Phil with caution, as if he were an animal about to attack. “Are you...okay?”

Phil glared at him through his fingers, “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Dan genuinely looked worried, but Phil brushed it off. 

“Yes, I’m sure. Now get out of my room, you’ve been here long enough.” He lay back on the bed, already feeling tired again. His sleep schedule was so messed up, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to go back to sleep and go back to that dream. 

“Okay.” Phil heard Dan get up, picking his way through the room to the door. “I’m gonna leave the folder here with you to look over. I already read through it.”

“I bet you did.” Phil muttered, still laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. 

“Um, sleep well I guess.” Dan had opened the door. “I’ll talk to you later then?”

Phil didn’t answer.

“Okay.” Dan’s voice was softer now, kind of defeated, and Phil felt a twinge of guilt in his chest. “Bye.” The door closed and Phil let out a breath. 

This kid was going to be the death of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOooooooo quality time with each other coming up?? Yes please. Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think so far in the comments I legit smile so wide whenever I get a comment it makes my day :D  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooooops sorry this is late!! I've had a long day, I had classes and babysitting for what felt like forever and I need to pack because I'm going camping starting tomorrow---i'm a mess, tbh. anyways, thank you for waiting and I hope you like this chapter! Phil's POV

The clouds floated by the window, silent in the way they moved, accompanied by only the low growl of the plane. 

Phil wasn’t sure how long they had been flying, but it had been long enough for him to get restless. His legs were too long to be comfortable in the tiny seats that the plane provided and although he’d done it a million times before, he never quite got to the point where he enjoyed flying. There were too many people that were all too high up off the ground, and even though he had assured himself millions of times that it was safe, he still felt a fear of it being the last time he climbed aboard a plane. 

Sure, the view was pretty, but the idea of a metal cage flying thousands of feet above the ground scared him. He was a constant ball of stress, the tense position he was in providing an extremely uncomfortable few hours for him. He couldn’t wait to land.

Dan, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content. He had paid for a movie to watch, which Phil had rolled his eyes at before, but he was beginning to regret not buying one himself. Dan looked so cozy with his over sized hoodie and knees pulled up to his chest like he was six years old, and Phil wondered what had happened to make him stop enjoying little stuff like Dan did. 

Dan seemed to constantly enjoy everything that was thrown at him, even if it was a two hour plane trip with an obviously unhappy partner. He smiled through everything, he laughed at himself——

And he was so hard to read.

Phil couldn’t quite place what it was about him, but there was something about Dan that wasn’t quite right, despite the fact that he was far more open than Phil was himself. Although he had known the kid for the better part of two weeks, Phil still knew nothing about Dan. Normally, that wouldn’t bother him, as he didn’t let anyone know anything about him either, but normally he could at least read the person. Dan’s personality was something that he couldn’t grab onto, and it made him uncomfortable that he knew literally nothing about him.

Phil pushed the thought from his mind, instead focusing on the present. 

He was bored.

Every few seconds, Phil would glance over at Dan’s tv to try and figure out what was happening on the screen, while being as subtle as he could. It seemed like some sort of drama or romance movie, as far as he could tell, and it didn’t look very entertaining. Dan, on the other hand, looked enthralled.

Phil sighed, looking back out the window at the clouds. He wasn’t looking forward to working on the job ahead of them. It was a simple missing painting case, one that he’d probably done a million times before, and it definitely didn’t need two people to get it done. It was humiliating to be demoted down to the kind of jobs that he had worked on when he was a teenager, and to be put with someone else to help him finish it?

It was pathetic.

“Hey.” Dan nudged him in the ribs with his elbow. “You okay?”

Phil realized that he had been glaring out the plane window, his grip on the shared armrest between them almost painful. “Yeah. M’fine.”

“Do you wanna watch?” Dan held out one of the earbuds to Phil, a smile on his face. “I saw you peeking over a few times. It’s almost halfway over, but it’s still good.”

“I...” Phil hesitated. It wasn’t like there was much else to do, and he knew if he spent more time alone with his thoughts, he wouldn’t like where they ended up. “Sure.” He accepted the earbud and Dan made sure the both of them were situated comfortably before restarting the movie. The armrest in between them went up and Phil found himself leaning onto Dan’s seat to see the screen better.

He had been wrong.

The movie was far better than he expected.

He allowed himself to get caught up in the messy story lines of the characters, following after them as they chased love and friendship and happiness. It was cliche and repetitive, but before he knew it, Phil found himself wondering and guessing the ending of the movie. He hadn’t pegged Dan for the type that enjoyed mindless romance movies. He was just about to point out the major character flaw of the protagonist to Dan when he felt a weight against his shoulder that made him freeze.

Looking down, he saw the younger with his head resting on Phil’s shoulder, completely asleep and leaning into what Phil hadn’t thought was a welcoming embrace. They were all limbs and elbows and essentially very uncomfortable in the way that they were situated, but apparently, it had been comfortable enough for Dan to fall asleep.

“Dan.” Phil jostled his shoulder slightly, but Dan stayed fast asleep. If anything, he cuddled closer, his hand wandering to find something to hold onto, so Phil gave him his by muscle memory alone.

Oh no, this was feeling far too familiar. Dan wasn’t Jasper.

And yet...Phil found it impossible to bring himself to disturb Dan in his sleep. 

Their hands stayed interlocked as Phil finished the movie alone, occasionally finding himself rubbing his thumb over the younger boy’s knuckles as his mind wandered. When the movie ended, he didn’t move. Sometimes he looked out at the clouds or around at the people in the plane or just down at Dan.

He couldn’t deny that the boy was pretty. Beautiful, even. It was the kind of effortless beauty that came to people who you least expect it to, the kind that brightened the days of people around them, the kind that Phil had always thought he wouldn’t be able to see up close. Although Dan was undeniably attractive on the outside, there was something in his words or in his heart or in his eyes that caught Phil’s attention. It was almost as if...

Dan stirred, and Phil was jerked from his thoughts with a red face and a mind full of too many thoughts. 

“What on earth...?” Dan looked up at Phil in confusion. 

Phil then realized that their hands were still intertwined on Phil’s lap and that they were practically sharing a seat with how much Phil had leaned in to see Dan’s screen.

“Oh!” He drew his hand back and apologized, knowing that his face was red as a tomato.

“It’s fine.” Dan assured, a faint smile on his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to fall asleep on you.” He chuckled, “Literally.”

Phil huffed a laugh, “Don’t worry about it. You missed the end of the movie though.”

“Damn.” Dan ran a hand through his already messy curls, “I was invested in that.”

Phil laughed, and for a brief moment, he felt as if the two of them were friends. He decided that it was a good feeling, although not a lasting one.

*****

They managed to get to the hotel from the airport with little difficulty, as both of them were fairly fluent in French. Phil had been to the country once before, and although he knew the language, he was shocked at how comfortable Dan was. 

The boy didn’t even stop for directions, and had gotten them to the hotel in just under twenty minutes by foot. He seemed...happier, almost. He smiled at the buildings like he had seen them all his life, he greeted passers by in easy French, and Phil could only follow along in awe as Dan found his way to their hotel. It wasn’t a tourist type hotel, which Phil was grateful for. It was small and worn out and had a warm and friendly feeling to it.

Like Dan.

The thought passed through his head for only a second before disappearing.

“How do you know this place so well?” He had asked when they arrived. 

“Been here before.” Dan had shrugged. “I don’t really forget places.” His dimple had shown up when he smiled. “It’s like I have a bunch of maps in my head.”

“I have a habit of losing maps,” Phil had said, shooting for a joke, “so don’t wander off.”

It had been enough to make Dan laugh, and Phil had smiled as well, pleased with himself.

Now at the hotel, they had their room and although it was only for a few weeks, Phil could already feel the walls closing in. The room was tiny and there was barely a foot of room between the two beds and shared bathroom was less than ideal in size. Phil only sighed though, and set his suitcase down on the bed closer to the window. He was going to need the open air with such limited space in the room. 

“They didn’t have any larger rooms?” He asked, sitting down on the admittedly comfortable bed, “I mean, we’re going to be staying here for a few weeks, you didn’t think of finding a room with a bit more space?”

“I wasn’t the one who picked it out.” Dan reminded, setting his own suitcase down on the opposite bed. “It was the boss. Besides, we’ll get used to it.”

“I’ve had my own room for my entire life.” Phil complained, “And now——”

“So have I.” Dan said softly, “I didn’t think sharing one would bother you so much.” He looked hurt, but also...not. Like none of it was bothering him. “I could look into getting separate ones, if you’d like?”

“No.” Phil sighed, getting up to open the window. It looked out on a small street paved with stones and was considerably high up. People walked around below, although it looked as if they weren’t tourists. Somehow, they had found a hotel near enough to the airport that wasn’t full of romance seeking foreigners, and Phil was grateful. “No, I think one room is enough.”

“Alright.” Dan followed Phil to the window and leaned out, breathing in deep and letting a smile crawl across his place. “I like it here.”

“Yeah?”

Dan nodded.

“You come here often?” Phil asked, watching his partner shut his eyes, turning his face towards the sun like a sunflower. 

Partner.

That had come into his mind all on it’s own, but Phil didn’t bother thinking too deeply on it.

“Yeah. When I was little.” Dan didn’t elaborate, and Phil didn’t push for more answers. 

Dan looked so happy, leaning halfway out the window and enjoying the feeling of the cool breeze on his face. Phil decided that he liked Dan like that. Relaxed and happy and open, like nothing could bother him. 

He hoped someday he’d find a place that made him feel like that.

“You want to walk around the town before it gets dark?” Dan opened his eyes, and Phil noticed how bright they suddenly were. “I could show you around the city for a little.”

Phil hesitated. He shouldn’t be giving in so easily to the temptations of camaraderie after only a few weeks of knowing Dan. That’s how friendships were made and then attachments and although he rather liked spending time with Dan, he had rather liked spending time with Jasper too.

Now Jasper was gone and Dan remained and Phil couldn’t bring himself to say no.

“Sure.” He offered a smile that he knew looked at least partially fake, but Dan only grinned wider. 

“Awesome,” He moved away from the window. “Get comfortable shoes on, I’m planning on walking for a while.”

“The sun’s almost down.” Phil reminded, “Let’s not stay out too late, yeah?”

“Right.” Dan still smiled, sitting down on his bed to pull his shoes on. “Hurry up, we’re running out of time.”

It was a comfortable sort of feeling between them as they got ready, quiet and ready for conversation should they choose to fill the empty space with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! A lil bit of nice phan stuff in this chapter, ooooooo. :P Thank you all so much for the comments that you've left, they really mean a lot to me. I love when people leave kudos, but when I get a comment, I'm hit with this realization that you're actually real people who are enjoying what I'm writing and it really is a nice feeling to know that someone out there is appreciating this. Anywho. I'll be back next week!  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically come say hi I promise I'm very nice


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright alright so. Turns out my thursdays are busy as heck and finding time to upload a chapter is rather hard. Soooooo I'll probably update on Wednesdays from now on, as I have a lot more time today than other days. Hope this is cool with everyone :D  
> Also, I'm trying something new this week. Since both this chapter and the next are rather short, I put them together so that it starts off with Dan's POV and switches to Phil's. Cool? Confusing? A little bit.

The idea of ‘home’ is a strange one.

It has many different meanings to many different people, and can be something completely different from one person to the next. It could be a childhood home or it could be the brand new city after living in a different place for years, or even a person. It holds memories and feeling that can’t be explained, even to someone as close as a family member, if they’re not lived in person.

Sometimes someone is born into their home. 

It had taken Dan thirteen years to find his.

Bordeaux, France was Dan’s home in every sense of the word. His childhood home, the place of his fondest memories, his constant goal to get back to when he was away——it was a place of genuine comfort and for whatever reason, he wanted to show it to Phil.

Phil, the man who had showed him almost nothing but contempt and dislike throughout all their time knowing one another. Phil the man who had stayed close to Dan on the airplane and had held his hand. Phil who claimed that any time spent away from Dan was good time and Phil who never stopped staring when Dan smiled at him.

The two of them walked side by side down the low lit streets that Dan knew so well, not bothering to fill the space between them with words just yet. It was comfortable, something that Dan had not expected while spending time with Phil.

The man had a strange sort of feeling about him. Sometimes he smiled at Dan, like he was actually enjoying the time that they were spending together, but then moments later he was shutting himself off like the two of them had never even spoken a word to each other. 

Frankly, it was confusing Dan, and he wasn’t sure quite what to expect when they were alone together. By offering to show his new partner around the city, Dan had hoped for moments just like the one they were sharing at that moment. Soft, accepting, maybe even friendly——it upset him slightly that he had gotten so used to the idea of not even sharing a good time with Phil.

“Where are we heading exactly?” And once again, Phil was back to normal, with harsh words and an eyebrow raised in unamusement. “You actually know where you’re going, right?”

Dan blushed, “Yeah, I do.” He had forgotten that Phil had been relying on him for guidance and had been wandering the streets without a destination in mind. “What do you want to do? We can stop by a cafe or the Jardin Public or——”

“You’re the expert here, aren’t you?” Phil asked, “I’m following you.” He said the words through gritted teeth and Dan’s heart sank. All thoughts of a friendly or amicable exploration of the city disappeared from his mind and he sighed before quickly putting on a smile and continuing to lead. 

“We can head to the Jardin Public. It’s this big park with a stream and a really nice bridge...” he let his voice go on autopilot as he talked up the park, spewing out facts about it that he had known since he was young. 

Phil nodded along like what Dan was saying was interesting, but his eyes showed that he was obviously somewhere else. Dan wished he were there too.

Although he had tried to deny it at first, Dan had realized that he was starting to find himself attracted to Phil. He wasn’t sure if it were in a romantic way or a sexual way or even just in a friendly way, but he still wanted to spend as much time as he could with the man. 

It was pathetic, really. Phil obviously felt differently for Dan, and even after staying up half the night reminding himself of Phil’s harsh words and dislike of sharing the same space as Dan, he still caught himself watching his new partner whenever he could.

Pretty wasn’t the right word for Phil. Neither was handsome, or beautiful or anything as mundane as that. There weren’t any words, at least that Dan could come up with, that could describe Phil accurately, and in the setting sunlight of a French city, he looked...radiant.

Now, that was stupid.

Dan shook his head against the thought, blushing a little when Phil cocked an eyebrow at him. No, it wasn’t fair to himself to think that way about someone who was as disinterested as Phil was. 

If you don’t make them as happy as they make you, then they’re not worth it. 

Dan smiled as his mother’s words came back to him, and for a moment he felt better. He could to better than Phil. He just needed to wait a little bit longer.

“Is this it?” Phil had stopped beside him, and Dan felt momentarily guilty that he had been ignoring Phil after he had offered to show him around, despite his partner being ungrateful and rude. 

“Oh.” Dan stopped as well and looked around. “Yeah.” 

The park was just as beautiful as Dan remembered, lined with more trees than he remembered, all lit up with the setting sun. The light made the trees seem to change color and as it was only an hour before the park closed, it was relatively empty. 

Immediately, the familiar sight had Dan relaxing and he couldn’t stop the flood of memories that surged through his mind when he saw the park. It had been one of his favorite places growing up. He remembered the puppet shows and merry go round from his childhood, from the few times he actually enjoyed them as he had been considered too old to attend and play on things meant for children. The long walks he took as he grew up, the times when he would literally do nothing except enjoy the life that teemed around him. The way the light landed on the trees brought him back to when the only thing he had to worry about was getting home in time for dinner and keeping his head down as instructed by his mother. 

“You’ve lived here before, haven’t you?” Phil asked as they walked around the park. “You seem at home here.”

Since when was Phil noticing these things about Dan?

Dan nodded. “Yeah.” He didn’t elaborate.

They made their way through the park, enjoying the way it looked with the setting sun lighting the trees up and casting shadows that got increasingly longer as they walked. 

PHIL

The whole situation was awkward, to say the least.

Dan was obviously uncomfortable, although whether it was because of Phil’s presence or because of something else was anyone’s guess. 

Phil walked along in silence, listening to Dan’s occasional explanation of some historical monument or location, doing his best to seem interested, but knowing he wasn’t succeeding. The space between them was awkward and tense, like they were both waiting for the other to say something or do something to break the tension that had grown between them. 

Dan was confusing to be around. On the one hand, Phil hated the silence that they shared. He hated how each word they spoke seemed to make the other’s skin crawl, the way their ideas clashed, the way their personalities varied——

And yet he still longed to be close to the man who was now his new partner.

He wanted the friendship and camaraderie that came with having a partner, wanted the feeling of someone having his back, someone holding his secrets. He wanted that with anyone other than Dan, because Dan was too much like Jasper and thinking of Jasper never ended well.

Phil glanced over at Dan who was walking with as much confidence as usual, his smile stuck in place like it had been glued there. It wasn’t a real smile, like the ones that Phil found himself noticing less and less often, but one that could be convincing to a less experienced eye. Dan was good at hiding behind that smile, and Phil wondered if he knew that Phil noticed that it was fake. Maybe if Dan knew that Phil knew——

“Phil!”

It happened way too fast.

The screech of car tires sounded off to Phil’s right and a flash of headlights blinded him. Moving away was out of the question, the thought reached his limbs far too slowly. 

In the split moment that the car headlights rushed towards him, Phil’s only thought was of seeing Jasper again, but before his body came into contact with the front of the car, arms circled around his middle and his head crashed against the pavement.

“Phil? Phil!” Dan was shaking him with such ferocity that Phil momentarily wished that the car had actually hit him.

He opened his eyes to see blurred stars circling above, and it took a moment for him to realize that they were actually that, and not the cartoon ones that a character would see after being hit on the head. He was on his back, looking up at the stars and the only thing blocking his view was the blurry, worried face of...

“Jasper?” He raised a hand to touch the face that he had missed so much. 

The eyes widened and Phil’s vision cleared.

“Oh.” 

It was Dan.

Phil dropped his hand, feeling his cheeks color in embarrassment. Of course it wasn’t Jasper. 

Upon seeing Phil’s eyes finally focus on him, Dan let out a breath of relief and dropped his head onto Phil’s chest. “Thought you died.” He mumbled, and Phil wanted to laugh at how ridiculous the situation was. Dan’s arms were around him and he felt the stones of the street digging into his back.

“’M fine.” He managed out, wincing slightly at the weight of Dan’s head on his chest. They were still on the street, although Dan seemed to have pulled them to the side and was now cradling Phil tightly in his arms and not letting go.

“Howell.” Phil tried to sit up, “I’m fine, let me go.”

Dan did so, his face red and his eyes showing off exactly how worried he was. “Did it hit you?”

“I don’t think so,” Phil looked himself up and down, “Unless I hit my head and I just don’t remember anything that happened. Who are you again?”

The look on Dan’s face was that of actual and genuine terror, and Phil immediately regretted his joke.

“No, no, I’m kidding,” He assured, “You’re Dan. I know who you are.”

Dan looked relieved for a moment, then angry. “You little shit.” He stood up, not bothering to set Phil down gently before he did so and his face still edged with a frown. “That wasn’t funny.” He didn’t offer Phil a hand up and Phil sighed, heaving himself to his feet and wincing slightly at the sharp pain in his shoulder and leg from where he hit the ground. 

“It was a little funny——”

“It wasn’t.” Dan’s reply was terse, and Phil shrugged. He regretted it instantly when a sharp burst of pain exploded in his shoulder. 

“Whatever.” He moved his shoulder a little to test how bad the injury was. “I’m fine.” He brushed off Dan’s worried glance and took a tentative step. He was fine. A little sore, but fine. “Where were we headed?”

Dan regarded him as though he had just proposed they walk to the moon. “We’re not going anywhere now,” He said it like it was obvious, looking Phil up and down and noticing the way he stood. “You’re hurt and rest is the best thing for now. Besides, I’m tired too.”

“Howell, I told you, I’m okay.” Phil sighed, “Look, just show me a little more of the city and then we’ll go back.”

“You’re hurt.”

“You’re overreacting.” Phil countered, “just show me the goddamn wine museum or something.”

Dan hesitated. “It’ll be closed right now, but we could take the long way back to the hotel if you’d like.” He obviously didn’t want to continue the tour, but Phil didn’t want to just go back to the hotel. 

“Sounds great. Which way.” 

Dan began to walk, his steps considerably slower than before, and he glanced over at Phil every few seconds as if making sure he was still with him.

Phil’s leg hurt like hell, but he did his best not to show it or be bothered by it. Dan was obviously a worrier, and Phil didn’t think he could stand it if Dan had to take care of him. He was still slightly in shock about what had happened. 

He’d had worse injuries before. 

Of course he had, it was part of the job requirement, but what bothered him was not how he had been so close to being smashed onto the pavement, but how he had been ready for it. The only thought in his mind was of seeing Jasper again and he hadn’t even hesitated before saying a brief goodbye to the world. 

Did he really not care if he lived or died? 

Would he have actually been okay if he had died right then and there?

The thought disturbed him.

To distract himself, he focused instead on the fake smile that was back on Dan’s face. He focused on the bright brown eyes that looked hurt and sad and hopeful at the same time. He focused on the careful and neutral expression on Dan’s face when he pointed out certain streets or an old car that piqued his interest. 

If it had been awkward before, the silence now was downright jagged.

Phil could almost feel the tension that sat like a weight on his shoulders, ready to smother any attempts at conversation should he try to begin one, but he felt the need to, anyway.

“Howell?” 

Both he and Dan started at the words, neither expecting the sudden break of silence.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for, uh,” Words began in his mouth and died at his lips. “Saving me back there.”

Dan shrugged, “Anyone would’ve——”

“I know.” Phil cut him off. “But, thanks anyway.”

“No problem.” Dan kicked at the stones. “That’s what partners are for, right?”

Phil couldn’t help but notice the slight bitterness in his tone, but he didn’t read into it.

“Yeah.” He echoed faintly, “I guess so.”

The stars watched from above his head and the stones watched from below his feet and Phil wished he wasn’t in between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> D r a m a ooooooooo exciting. I hope. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think so far a) so I can maybe be motivated to keep an actual updating schedule and b) because I love getting comments lol  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically
> 
> how did february end already it was june like yesterday what


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating!! On time!! On the right day!! Who am I????  
> Hope you're all having a nice day and got a hug from someone and are staying hydrated. it's important.  
> Anyway, hope you like the chapter!! :D

Dan couldn’t help the way he kept looking over at Phil.

The man had almost died, for fucks sake, he was worried about him.

As they made their way back to the hotel after walking around the city for another half hour, Dan noticed the very obvious way that Phil was limping and doing his best not to put too much weight on his leg. He resisted the urge to reach out to help Phil with his balance as they reached the stairs, but a warning look in his direction from Phil changed his mind. 

By the time they opened the door to their room, Phil had his jaw set against what Dan assumed was pain and didn’t speak as he set himself down on the edge of his bed. 

“You...okay?” Dan asked, for what must have been the hundredth time in only fifteen minutes. 

Phil nodded, his eyes staying shut as he leaned back against the pillows. 

“You don’t look it.” Dan told him, sitting down on his own bed and regarding the man with worry in the back of his mind. “You probably do too, but I know a little first aid.” He shrugged, “Kind of a job requirement.”

Phil ground his teeth. “I’ve been working in this field probably longer than you’ve been alive.” He managed out, but there was barely any malice in his tone. He just sounded tired.

Dan smiled softly, standing up and moving towards Phil’s bed. “Old man.”

Phil huffed in what could resemble a laugh. “Yeah, right.”

Dan sat at the edge of the bed and gently pried Phil’s hands away from his ankle. “Haven’t you dealt with stuff like this before?”

“Of course I have, dumbass.” Phil winced as soon as the words left his mouth. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize for swearing.” Dan laughed, “Here, move your hands.” 

Phil did and Dan ran his hands over the slightly swollen skin on Phil’s ankle, frowning. “A sprain, probably. I’m pretty sure I’ve had at least thirty of these in just the past year.”

Phil looked alarmed and Dan rolled his eyes. “Kidding, dumbass.” He used Phil's insult from before and ignored the surprised and amused look on Phil’s face as he mentally ran through the procedure for a sprained ankle. “Don’t you know how to care for these yourself?”

“Yes.” Phil sat up on his elbows and narrowed his eyes at Dan. “But it’s a lot easier when someone else does it all for you.”

“You owe me.” Dan muttered, “Anyway. You’re not going to be able to walk on this for a while, at least not without crutches.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Phil let himself drop back onto the pillows. “I know what a sprain is.”

“Great.” Dan stood up. “You stay here and I’ll go get some ice from the machine.” He ignored the muttered complaints of his partner as he grabbed his room key——lord knew that Phil wouldn’t be able to get up to let him back in——and headed out. 

The two of them figured out a system, at least for a few hours. Dan wrapped the ice in one of the extra pillowcases and he and Phil took turns pressing it onto the sprained ankle for 20 minutes at a time, to reduce the swelling. They reviewed the case file until their eyes hurt and at some point, Phil had switched on the tv to the cooking channel. Dan didn’t complain.

He hated to admit it, but he was thrilled that the injury had somehow brought them———literally———closer together. He had even managed to make Phil laugh, which was more than Dan had even hoped for. 

All the stories that he had heard of the camaraderie shared between partners had had him wanting it for years. Someone he could trust and be himself with and rely on——it hadn’t been something that he’d expected to have for himself, especially after he had been paired with Phil.

The man could be nice, he realized that now, but upon first meeting, it had been obvious that Phil didn’t like him. Dan wished he knew the reason why. 

He wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth now, though. He let himself smile and talk to Phil like he had hoped they could from the day they met, and he was surprised to find that he was comfortable talking to the other man. The bright blue eyes lit up when they laughed, and Dan was proud to be the one to make that so. 

He turned his attention to the tv, where ‘Le Meilleur Patissier’ had been playing on a marathon for the past hour, and tried not to notice how close their arms were to touching. He watched the dedicated work of the pastry chefs on the show, marveling at their precise and intricate dessert designs and remembering when people used to call him creative and talented for his own art.

Sighing, Dan pushed his back farther into the pillows so that they partially hid him from sight. Being back in the city of his upbringing was causing far more memories than he had wanted to resurface. Walking on the stone streets, watching the sunset, even the smell of the air brought back memories that he had thought were gone forever. 

For a moment, he wished he could share them with someone, tell them all about how it was growing up in the city, but he knew that Phil wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t care about the sun soaked mornings at the farmer’s market, or the hours spent in the Jardin Public with a sketchpad, and that was fine. 

‘They’re not his memories to have.’ Dan reasoned with himself, although he knew that it was only a way of covering his hurt. ‘They’re mine and I don’t need to share them.’ 

“——Dan?”

“Hm?” He looked up from where he lay in his heap of pillows. 

“Were you listening?”

“Ah,” Dan shook his head, “Sorry. No. Is your ankle okay?” he sat up on his elbows as Phil nodded.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I was going to ask if you wanted to move to your bed because it looks like you’re falling asleep there.” If Dan didn’t know any better, he would have thought that there was a little hint of amusement in Phil’s eyes as he looked down at him.

“Oh, right.” Dan glanced out the window, somehow surprised that the stars were peeking in through the thin curtains. He got up from the bed and grabbed his bag of toiletries and pajamas on his way to the bathroom, swearing that he’d felt Phil’s eyes on his back as he walked. 

As they settled in for the night, they kept up an easy conversation about the contestants of the baking show, sometimes even sharing a laugh between them. 

It was a nice feeling, Dan realized, sharing a space and a joke with someone like Phil. He couldn’t help but think that this was exactly how he had hoped he and Phil would get along from day one. 

“How long did you live here?” 

The lights were off and the two of them lay in the relative silence that came with a hotel room above a slightly busy street.

Dan shrugged, although he knew that Phil couldn’t see him. “A few years.”

Dan heard Phil roll over onto his side to face his own bed. “A few years?”

“From when I was thirteen to nineteen.”

“Oh.”

Dan didn’t like the direction that the conversation was headed, but he didn’t end it. Not yet.

“Did you live here with your family?” Phil obviously didn’t realize how guarded the question caused Dan to become. “I mean, you didn’t live here alone when you were thirteen, right?”

“I...” Dan didn’t really want to continue, but he realized that Phil was asking the questions that he had wanted to answer only a few hours before. “Yes. I lived with my mom in a little studio apartment on the outskirts of the city. We would take the bus to the farmer’s markets on Saturdays and sometimes we’d just spend a day exploring the museums and gardens.”

“Sounds nice.” Phil’s smile could be heard.

“Mmm.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Who doesn’t miss their childhood home?”

Silence answered him.

“I suppose.” Phil finally said, but the atmosphere of the room had changed. “What were you parents like?”

Dan froze, his blankets suddenly providing a chill instead of warmth. He didn’t want to talk about his parents. He couldn’t. Especially not to Phil who was so level headed and normal and had probably shared a perfectly nice relationship with his own parents. 

Sure, Dan could have talked about his mom, although he was definitely not ready for the wave of nostalgia and pain that that would bring along. Telling Phil about his dad was out of the question, because who wants to bring up the worst part of their childhood? And——

“Dan?”

“I’m tired.” The words were rushed, but he didn’t care. “We need to be up early tomorrow and we’d better get a good night’s rest, don’t you think?”

Phil hesitated, but gave in. “I guess you’re right.” He knew that Dan was keeping something to himself and Dan knew that Phil knew, but both pretended that they didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading my garbage!! It means a lot but ya'll already know that.  
> I'm kinda feeling the writer's block coming on so if any of you have any ideas as to where this is going, please let me know lol  
> And if anyone wants to send a writing prompt for anything go for it! I need to write more! :D  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yiiiiiikes sorry this is late. My only excuse is that I started watching Skam and now I can't stop oops. I hope all of you are doing well and that you're having a good day/night :D

Phil wasn’t pleased.

Not only was he sick of working a low profile case with Dan when they should’ve been working on finding The Ghent Altar Piece, the important job had just gotten more interesting and he still wasn’t allowed on it. 

What was worse, was that he had realized that his father wasn’t even bothering to keep him updated on the case while he was away. He had found out via a goddamn newspaper that now there were murders linked to Leonard Sonata and his family.

Phil had grabbed a copy, hastily shoving a few bills to the man and hurriedly making his way back to the hotel to show Dan. Dan had chosen to stay in to take a nap, and after a few attempts to wake him up, Phil had left him behind in search of dinner.

They were close to finishing the case, but they had gotten to the most time consuming part that came with almost every job, which was when they had to literally wait for a plan to play out of for evidence to come back to them. It was what Phil hated most about his work, and as they had already been in Bordeaux for two weeks, he was ready to begin some real work. 

Not that he didn’t love the city. It was a lovely place to be and seeing Dan so happy there was certainly something that he liked to see often, but the job felt like a filler chapter to what was playing out to be a very long and frustrating novel about his life. 

As he finally made it back to the hotel room, he was grateful to find that Dan was no longer in bed, although his extremely curly and wet hair showed that he had just recently gotten out of the shower. Phil tried not to notice the way his t-shirt was sticking to him in just the right places. 

“Where’d you go?” Dan asked, not bothering to look up from where he sat by the window, the hotel’s provided pen and paper in his hand.

“Dinner.” Phil, closed the door behind him, “Did you eat?”

“Room service.”

“So you didn’t have to leave the room. Smart.”

Dan grinned and went back to what he was writing or drawing——Phil couldn’t see the paper. “Any reason you look like you just ran a marathon with no beforehand training?” He was so focused on the paper in his hand. 

“Oh right.” Phil pulled the newspaper out of his bag. “Look.” He tossed it at his partner. “Sonata’s screwing around, probably to try and distract from the Altar Piece. Though, why he chose literally murdering people to do so is a mystery to me.” He tossed himself down on his bed, toeing off his shoes and pillowing his head in his folded hands. “You’d think a family that has survived off of crime for years would have raised a better criminal, or at least one who knows better than to try and pull off a theft of such a famous piece of art alongside homicide. Weird, huh? What do you think?”

Dan didn’t answer, and Phil opened his eyes and rolled over to look at Dan. “You okay?”

The boy was pale, like those cartoons where the color literally drains from a character’s face, and his eyes were wide. Phil feared for a moment that he was going to fall out the window. 

“Dan?”

“I’m fine.” The words were said with such ferocity that Phil frowned and sat up.

“I never said you weren’t.” He assured slowly, although Dan was beginning to worry him. “What is it? Did you know something about these before?”

Dan shook his head, but his eyes stayed trained on the paper in his hand. The paper in his hand that was quickly being crumpled with the now shaking fists that held it tight.

“Whoa, whoa.” Phil got up from the bed, his hands shooting out to cover Dan’s own. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I didn’t think he would...” Was all he said, and Phil’s worry skyrocketed.

“I know, it’s horrible.” He sat in front of Dan and gently tried to pry his hands away from the newspaper. “I didn’t think he would do it either.” That was a lie——there was no way to predict what someone like Sonata would do, but somehow it made Dan’s grip on the paper relax enough so that Phil could take it and toss it on the bed behind him.

“Stealing is one thing, but killing...” Dan trailed off, then looked up at Phil with panic stricken eyes. “Who was it.”

“Sonata.” Phil gently rubbed his thumb against Dan’s clenched fists, trying to keep his partner’s fingernails from cutting too deep into the palm of his hand. “Leonard.”

“No, I meant who did he——”

“Off?”

Dan winced. “Yeah.”

Grabbing the crumpled paper from the bed, Phil noticed the slightly torn edges of it. “A guy called Nilsson. Randy?”

“Randell.” Dan breathed.

Phil was incredulous. “You knew the guy?”

“What? No.” Dan didn’t try to look at the newspaper again. “I could have sworn I read something somewhere about Nilsson and Sonata being buddies back in the day.”

“Huh.” Phil read through the article while keeping one of his hands massaging Dan’s. His partner seemed to be taking comfort from the gesture, and if Phil was being honest, the guy needed it pretty badly. He had been a little torn up about the news himself, although he wasn’t so much as surprise because of the crime and more that his father had denied to inform him of the news. “I hadn’t heard that.”

After a little while, Dan calmed down and Phil let go of his hand. He ignored the slight pang when he let go, shoving down the idea of holding on for his own comfort now instead of just for Dan’s. They didn’t talk about what had happened, although it was obvious that Dan was still on edge. He hadn’t moved from his little spot beside the window, the paper in his hand filling up with drawings that Phil couldn’t make out from where he sat on the bed.

The drawings brought his mind back to the Sonata kid, and he was tempted to open up his bag right then and there and flip through that damn art book again. He had brought it with him after holding in his hand for over five minutes, deciding whether or not to pack it. 

The drawings were special to him in a way. They made him feel like he knew the youngest Sonata personally, and for whatever reason, he couldn’t bring himself to think that Daniel was in any way like his father. Flawed thinking, he knew, but he hated thinking that the kid who drew smiley faces when he was little could turn into someone as screwed up as Leonard.

“What are you drawing?”

Dan sat straight upright at Phil’s words, as if he had forgotten that Phil was there. 

“Your drawings,” Phil nodded at the little pad of paper that had been filling up with drawings for at least half an hour. “What are they of?”

Dan shrugged, “Anything.” He still seemed bothered.

“I didn’t know you drew.”

“I don’t.” Dan offered a little smile, which was more than he’d offered since the newspaper incident, but it disappeared quickly. “They’re just doodles, really. Nothing special.”

“Can I see?”

Hesitation was obvious on Dan’s features, but he nodded eventually. As he handed the pad of paper to Phil, he filled the air between them with, ‘They’re not really that good’ and ‘Just doodles’ and ‘I’m no artist’, which Phil promptly denied.

He froze when he saw them though.

It was like looking back on childhood memories, and for a moment, he forgot how to breathe. If Dan’s drawings had been drawn in the back of Sonata’s art book, Phil wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. 

“You drew these?” He asked, although it was obvious.

Dan nodded. “I used to draw a lot when I was little.”

“Right.” Phil felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath his feet. 

Dan couldn’t possibly be the owner of the art book, could he?

What were the chances of that happening?

“Did you study art when you were young?” Phil asked, as innocently as possible. 

If he hadn’t been looking for it, he would have completely missed the flicker of something in Dan’s eyes before the curly haired boy shrugged. “Kind of.” He took the notepad back when Phil offered it and the two of them let silence take over. He went back to drawing and Phil lay back on his bed, his eyes alternating from closing and watching Dan.

Daniel.

Sonata?

But if he was the Sonata kid, why was he working a case against Leonard, his own father?

As Dan seemed to be allergic to mornings, Phil hoped his partner would stick to his regular schedule of sleeping in, so that Phil could do some very important research before they began work. All of a sudden, his mind was filled the idea that Dan was working as a double agent against him, and that this job was just to throw him off of his father’s case. 

He almost laughed out loud at how ridiculous that sounded. If he was sure about anything, Phil was sure that Dan most definitely wouldn’t hurt him intentionally.

A sniffle of what sounded like tears broke through his thoughts and Phil’s eyes shot open, surprised to find that most of the lights in the hotel room had been turned off and that Dan was still up at the window. 

Still up at the window with his shoulders shaking with must have been sobs.

Phil shifted to sit up, but as the bed creaked under him, Dan hastily wiped at his cheeks and turned away from the bed, almost as if he were hiding from Phil. Understandably, though, because no one wants strangers watching as they cry. 

Well, Phil wasn't exactly a stranger, but it wasn't as if they knew each other very well.

Phil stayed still, allowing his breath to fall back into a normal routine and apparently, it was convincing enough. Dan’s tears returned, although less than before, and Phil did his best not to get up and just fucking hold the poor guy until he felt better. 

He wasn’t sure how long they sat there in relative silence as Dan slowly calmed down and the tears stopped. He stepped down from his spot by the window and closed it, covering the glass with the thin curtain and tossing the notebook onto the bedside table as he passed it.

Phil tried not to hold his breath when Dan stopped next to his bed, and he could almost hear his heart pounding when, instead of climbing into his own bed, Dan crawled up next to Phil instead. Phil, being on his side, could no longer see Dan who had curled up close to Phi’s back, but he did his best not to make it seem like he was awake.

Maybe Dan just needed the extra comfort of sharing a bed with someone, which Phil understood, although sharing a bed with his new partner was in no way as awkward as he thought it would be. Dan was warm and they fit together in a way that Phil was confused about, but the exhaustion of the day was catching up to him fast.

As he fell asleep, Phil could’ve sworn that he had felt Dan’s arm wrapping around his middle from behind, but he wasn’t awake long enough to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANKS as always for reading! I know I say this all the time but it means a lot that people are actually enjoying this stuff :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all sorry if this chapter's not that great, life's kinda kicking my butt. I'm alright, but focusing on finishing a chapter is hard lol   
> Hope you enjoy!!

Phil woke up early that next morning, half grateful and half disappointed to find Dan curled away from him on the other side of the bed with a pillow trapped in his arms like he was hugging it. It would have been easy to just stay in bed and do his research on his phone, but Phil wasn’t sure how Dan would react to them waking up in the same bed. No, better he be up and about and let Dan bring it up if he wanted to. 

He sat hunched over Dan’s empty bed with his laptop and Daniel Sonata——or Howell’s-------art book open beside him. He had opened the book to the last drawing, the one that pictured the hunched over form of a man. Looking at it now, Phil wondered if that was supposed to be Dan. 

The thought made him wince; he didn’t want to think of Dan in a position like that, especially not now that he knew more about the guy. 

He had opened more tabs than he usually would have(he liked to avoid clutter on his web browser whenever possible) and kept an open ear out just in case Dan decided to break routine and wake up before eleven for once.

As a dummy search, he googled Daniel Sonata and found next to nothing. The name was listed under Leonard’s as a child, but there was no link to more information. The birth date was blank and there were no pictures of the kid. It was like he had been made up.

Next, he googled Dan Howell, but it proved almost as fruitless as the first search. All that was listed was a small town art competition from over a decade before. That was unsurprising, as Dan was obviously very talented. Phil clicked the link and it took him to an article about the top three winners of the competition, along with a display of their art and pictures of each of the kids and their families.

Dan’s entry was particularly impressive, especially for a fifteen year old, and it depicted what looked to Phil like the Jardin Public, although it was rather different to the park that Dan had shown Phil only a few weeks before.

The park in the drawing was almost exactly like it had when Phil had seen it, but instead of having only two or three people walking around in it, it was teeming with people from all around the world with little flags of their countries on their shirts. Along with that, animals from different countries wandered around with the people, hiding in trees and even climbing on the merry go round. It looked like something straight out of a children’s book, and Phil smiled when he realized that this cheerful, optimistic drawing had come after the dark art that Dan had come up with, years prior. 

As he scanned the pictures of the winning kid’s and their families, Phil stopped short when he found what must have been Dan and his mother.

A tall, gangly and curly haired kid stood beside a woman who had pride written all over her face. Phil’s eyes were trapped on Dan’s face and he actually smiled when he saw how genuinely happy the kid looked. It was the smile that Dan had shown off on their first day in France, and Phil hadn’t realized then that it had been a smile of coming home. 

He let his eyes drift over to Dan’s mother and he couldn’t help thinking that she looked rather familiar. He could definitely see the resemblance to Dan, although there was something else there that he knew he had seen before. Unless...

Even as he was typing her name into the search bar, Phil knew what he was going to find. He didn’t want to, obviously, but he knew.

Grace Liane Howell.

Almost nothing came up, except for her picture and name in the same article he had just come from.

With shaking fingers, Phil typed in ‘Grace Sonata’.

Pictures came up from events and charity balls and art shows and Phil felt his stomach flip over when he saw that it was the same woman. The woman who had gone missing from the arm of one of the most wealthy art collectors in the country only to be replaced almost instantly afterward. Listed under her name was Daniel Sonata as her son, still with no date of birth or a picture to prove anything, but Phil knew.

Glancing over at the bed opposite, he watched Dan’s easy rise and fall of breath as he slept on, unknowing that Phil had him all figured out.

For a moment, Phil did nothing. Then the moment stretched out into minutes and the minutes into hours until Dan finally stirred in his sleep and Phil was forced to put away the art book and change the page.

“Why’re you up s’early?” Dan grumbled, merely turning over and hiding his head under his blanket.

“It’s nearly eleven, Howell.” Phil pointed out, “Although it is technically earlier for you, as you usually sleep in later than this.”

“Shuddup.” Came the reply, and Phil smiled softly to himself as he closed out of his research and cleared his history. 

He wasn’t sure what to think.

Dan had to know he was working against his own father, right? Or at least he would have figured it out by now. Thinking back to the day before, Phil let all the pieces fall together so that everything made sense. Of course Dan would be upset by the news. He had a right to break down like he had and Phil didn’t even blame him for inviting himself into Phil’s bed. 

He wondered if Dan was ever planning on telling him who he really was. 

With a sigh, he stood up. “I’m heading out to get some breakfast, do you want to come along? I’ll wait for you.”

Dan peeked his head out from under the blankets. “Whatddya think I’m going to get up right now?” he snorted. “As if.” He rolled over so that he was lying on his back and watched the ceiling while he told Phil, “You go ahead. Bring me back something if you remember. If not, I can get room service.”

Phil rolled his eyes, “You can’t only live off of room service food.”

“Oh yeah?” Dan closed his eyes again, but he didn’t move. “Try me.”

*****

It was nearing the end of the job, and Dan wasn’t doing any better. 

Two more murders had been announced and each one had sent Dan deeper into himself, making him barely talk for days and avoid even Phil like the plague. It caused Phil to worry even more than he already did, and he hated having to watch as Dan pushed the food around on his plate until he claimed that he wasn’t hungry. 

Phil tried to ignore the way Dan ate less and barely slept, but it was becoming more and more obvious that he was falling apart. The shadows under his eyes grew more prominent the bright fire that once shone in his eyes had dimmed, showing off exactly how much the murders had affected him. 

He rarely left the hotel room if he didn’t need to, and although he claimed he was living off of room service, Phil doubted as much. The bill was surprisingly low for someone to be living off only that, which only sent Phil into that much more of a worry.

Even at night, after they had shared a few words of quiet conversation, Phil would say goodnight and watch the glow of Dan’s phone shine off the wall until he fell asleep. 

Dan had a right to be upset. Phil knew that if it were his own father committing murders, he’d react the same way, if not a little more violent. He only wished he knew how to better help Dan. He had tried more than once to just talk to the kid, just to give him someone to vocalize his feelings to, but the conversations always died after only a few minutes. Mostly, Dan just did his work and went back to bed, barely offering even a glance at Phil.

It was killing him.

More than anything, he just wanted to just hold the kid. Tell him that he was going to be okay. Run his fingers through those goddamn curls and maybe kiss his forehead and——fuck. 

No.

That was too much to ask for.

And even if Dan did———

“Phil?”

Phil jerked from his thoughts, letting his eyes focus on the slumped shoulders that he had grown accustomed to seeing. The sun was due to come up in a few hours, but as Dan never really got out of bed lately, Phil hadn’t even bothered to turn over to check if he was even there. 

Poor guy didn’t even sleep when he was in bed, Phil realized, He just lay there most of the time.

“Yeah, what’s up?” He had to restrain himself from adding a ‘sweetheart’ to the end of the sentence. Damn, he was falling fast and hard. 

“Can I sleep in your bed?”

Phil almost had a heart attack. “What?”

“I mean,” Dan kicked at the side of the bed, his eyes staying stuck to the floor. “If it’s okay with you. I know we never talked about it when it happened a few days ago, but I slept better...”

“Yeah, sure.” Phil’s heart pounded as he lifted up the blankets, not bothering to mention that it was almost time for him to get up. 

Dan stayed on his side of the bed for the most part, although Phil had to fight his own arms from wrapping around his upset partner. If he was admitting to Phil that he needed help sleeping, Dan must have been reaching his limit. 

“I’m sorry.” Dan muttered, turning so that he lay on his back. “I know this is weird.”

“It’s only weird if we make it weird.” Phil matched his pose, choosing to look up at the ceiling rather than at Dan. “Besides, if it helps you sleep, then I’m willing to do it.”

“That means a lot. Thanks.”

“Sure.”

The ceiling had a small stain in the corner, right where it met the top of the wall. Phil watched it, but it didn’t do anything.

“Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s Jasper?”

Swallowing hard, Phil tried not to let his emotions get the better of him. “What?”

“Jasper. You said his name when the car almost hit you and sometimes you say it in your sleep.”

For a moment, Phil considered shutting himself off from Dan, like he would have normally done with any other person, but he found it hard to do. He wanted to tell Dan about Jasper, he wanted to talk about him again without just explaining to some official as to why he was gone. 

Dan sighed, “I’m sorry——”

“He was my partner.” Phil started, and Dan went quiet. “Jasper Williams.” Saying the name out loud made his heart ache, but he pushed through. “He and I were paired together when I first got out of training. We had known each other before we were paired up though, because when he was finishing training, I was starting. The two of us were always kind of drawn to each other, you know?”

Dan nodded, although Phil doubted he could possibly know what it was like.

“I think my dad was always going to put us together. We worked well together, and we already knew each other better than anyone else; I think it was meant to be or something.” He pulled in a deep breath. He hadn’t ever told this story, because everyone he saw regularly already knew it. Anyone new didn’t deserve to know it, and he had kept the name and the story to himself for years now. 

“What was he like?” Dan asked, almost tentatively, like he was worried it would make Phil shut down. 

“He was...” Phil glared up at the stain. “He was fucking perfect. I know it’s impossible, but to me, he was. He had this smile that would clear the clouds and bring out the sun and his eyes...” He chewed his lip. “And he used to tease me, like in the nicest way possible. And he could make me smile even if I was crying and he always knew what to say.”

“He sounds great.” Dan supplied, and Phil nodded.

Now that he had started, he couldn’t stop. “And when he got really excited about something, his eyes would light up and he’d have this huge smile on his face and he moved his hands so much. Once, when I had gotten hurt during a job, I was stuck in the hospital and he stayed with me the entire time. We read books and watched movies and played games and when the nurses weren’t looking, he would climb onto the tiny hospital bed and hold me.” Phil wondered if that was saying too much. He glanced to his side to where Dan was also watching the ceiling.

He was smiling, if the little quirk of his lips could be counted as a smile. Phil wondered if Dan ever had someone as special as Jasper in his life. 

“Do you love him?” Dan asked the ceiling, and Phil sighed.

“I did.” He reached a hand up towards the ceiling admiring the way it looked against the growing light of the rising sun. He was going to have to get up soon, although he didn’t want to. 

“So what happened?” Dan finally asked, after long minutes of waiting in silence. Phil hadn’t even noticed that they had stopped talking.

“He...uh.” Phil cleared his throat. “I guess I didn’t make him as happy as he made me. Didn’t want to keep going maybe. Whatever it was, apparently it finally pushed him to the edge. Literally.” He almost tried to force a laugh, but he couldn’t quite manage. “One of the guys saw him standing on a bridge and by the time he got to him——well.”

“Oh.”

“They found his body the next day.” Phil hated this part of the story, in all the times he had told it to himself, just so he wouldn’t forget it. “We had a funeral and I can’t forget the goddamn purple flowers by the casket.”

Dan didn’t say anything. He obviously hadn’t been expecting the story. 

“I was going to marry him, you know.” Phil whispered. “I think I would have, if he hadn’t...”

He stopped talking and watched as the sun sent interested glances through the window. Shadows shrank back and the thin curtains served almost no use against the bright light of the morning.

When he looked over at Dan, Phil saw the his partner was asleep, and he felt momentarily guilty about keeping the obviously tired man up later than he needed to. Dan needed sleep, not Phil’s tragic back story.

“I was scared of you when you first showed up.” He told his sleeping friend, because that’s what Dan was now. “I was scared my dad was trying to replace Jasper. I didn’t want a partner after he died, and your smile is too much like his.”

It felt good to finally say it, although he barely weighed out the pain that had come with telling the whole story.

Without bothering to rethink, Phil rolled over so that he was tucked against Dan’s side with his arm thrown over the curly haired boy’s waist. They could deal with it when they got up. 

For the moment, though, all Phil wanted was to hold someone and feel bad for himself. Even though the sun alerted him of it’s presence, he shut his eyes against it and held Dan a little tighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was sad as hell  
> As always, thanks for reading and commenting and leaving kudos, it makes my day :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooooo all! I hope you're all having a great day, you deserve it!

The last week hadn’t been the worst of Dan’s life, but it was certainly up there in the top five. 

He couldn’t bring himself to sleep or eat or even talk to Phil, which he normally enjoyed. Everything seemed dulled, pointless, and he hated thinking that the date of the main heist was coming up. 

Dan looked up from where his hands gripped tight against each other and gazed out the window at the street. He was back by the windowsill, opting for the open air and light as opposed to the dark, albeit warm comfort of his blankets. He knew Phil was getting worried about him, especially because he had let Dan into his bed with barely any hint of hesitation, and it was upsetting Dan even more to know that he was the cause of Phil’s worry. 

Phil had told a story, too, which had surprised Dan. For one, he had never expected to be trusted enough that Phil would actually tell him about himself. The story itself had been surprising as well. Phil’s partner had died, and he was obviously still so torn up about it. Dan had wished he had possessed enough courage at that moment, wanting nothing more than to hug Phil or tell him that it was going to be okay.

The story had distracted Dan, at least for long enough for him to fall asleep without having to think about his Dad, for once. 

Leonard had murdered someone.

The thought was still so hard to comprehend.

Leonard had always been unstable and easy to anger, and Dan couldn’t even count the number of times his anger had gotten the best of him and he had flown off the handle. It was part of the reason he and his mother had left.

Well, that and the fact that Leonard had tried to get Dan to go into his line of work.

The light of the afternoon sun lit up the street below the window, and Dan leaned partially out so that he could see the people walking below. Since the hotel was fairly close to the airport, occasional tourists walked past, along with a few of the locals, their destinations unknown to Dan.

“So I was walking by the farmers market again,” Phil started talking as soon as the door opened and Dan did his best to fix a smile to his face to try and convince his partner that he was okay. “And there was this guy selling apples and they looked really good, you know? Everything looks good at the farmers market.” He shook his head, “But anyway, he must have seen that I was looking at them because he had me stop for a second as he cut one up and he gave me a piece to taste, right?”

Dan nodded, already seeing where the story was going.

“So I tasted it and I shit you not, it was the greatest apple I have ever and probably ever will taste. I swear, I could have cried right then and there.”

“But you decided not to and to instead buy out his entire stand?” Dan guessed, eliciting a sheepish smile from Phil.

“No, but almost.” He held up a brown paper bag that looked to be rather heavy. “You want one?”

Dan hesitated, “Uh, yeah. Sure.” It was more than he had spoken to Phil in a while, and it was obviously noticed. Phil beamed at him, already digging around in the bag to pull out two apples.

He tossed one to Dan and went to join him at the windowsill, looking down at the street.

“I’m kinda going to miss this place, you know?” 

Dan hummed in agreement.

“I mean, I’m excited for the main heist and all, but I do love this place.” He turned to shoot a small smile in Dan’s direction. “Are you ready for it? The Sonata heist?”

Dan frowned. He really wasn’t. 

“Dan?”

“Maybe you should get a different partner for this job.” The words were out before he could stop them, but he didn’t bother to try and take them back. It had been what he was thinking, after all.

“What?” Phil set his apple down. Dan hadn’t touched his. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe a different sort of job would suit me better.” Dan continued. He couldn’t bring himself to look Phil in the eyes. “I don’t know, I just don’t think I’m suited for this type of work.” That wasn’t it, but he wasn’t going to go blabbing to Phil about why he couldn’t go face his estranged father.

“Dan, you’re——”

“I’m not experienced with this. It’ll only be my second job with this organization and I don’t think I’m ready for such a huge job.”

“We’ve been preparing for this for months!” Phil sputtered, “Dan, I’ve been working towards this for years!”

“Then you should find someone who’s better suited for the job!” Dan shot back, “Listen, I’m new to this. I’m going to mess up and screw up your work. I know it. If you can get a different partner, I’m sure they could do a lot better job than I’d do.”

“Bullshit.” Phil glared. “True, I wasn’t too happy to be working with you before, but we’re good together.” His mouth twisted for a moment, like he was going to take back what he said but he didn’t. “We work well as a team.”

“You don’t know that! I could be terrible as a partner. This whole job was too easy to test if we were any good working together. I’ve never had a partner before and your last experience with one wasn’t too great——what if we can’t work together? What if we just mess each other up because we don’t know each other? What if it’s my fault?” The last part came out without Dan meaning for it to. “I mean...” But he didn’t know what he meant. He was scared that he would mess up and somehow hurt Phil. He was scared of seeing his dad again. He was scared he would miss him if he saw him again.

“Daniel, listen to me.” 

Dan jerked his head up at his full name. Not even his mother had called him that.

“I’m kinda nervous too. You know, I’ve been wanting to work a Sonata job since I could walk. I would watch people come back from an unsuccessful job and I’d tell myself that I was going to be the one to finally bust the family. I would be the one to finally put the Sonatas behind bars. Now that we’re about to actually do it, I’m afraid of messing up too.”

“You couldn’t possibly mess up as much as I would.” Dan told him, meaning it with all his heart. “What if I say something wrong? What if he hurts me? What if he hurts you? I can’t be responsible for you getting hurt, especially at the hands of Leonard. What happens when he catches us?” He didn’t even bother to say ‘if’. “What happens when he tries to stop us from turning him in?”

“Dan, you have a right to be nervous——”

“I’m not just nervous, I’m scared!” Dan burst out, “You don’t know this man, we’re in danger as long as we’re even thinking about trying to go up against him! He will win over us and if we get out alive, I’d count it as a win!”

Phil was watching him warily.

“He’s killed people, Phil.” It was suddenly very important that Phil knew as much as possible about Dan’s father, “He’ll try to kill you, he’ll try to kill me——you don’t understand!”

“I don’t understand what?”

“What he can do to you!”

“And you do?”

Dan hesitated, “He’s my...” Shit. Why was he telling Phil? Right before they had to leave for the mansion? “my...” 

Phil raised his eyebrows, but there was no malice in his eyes. He looked understanding, almost.

“He’s my dad.” Dan told the apples that sat between them, continuing to talk so that he didn’t have to hear Phil’s reaction, whatever it may be. “He’s a horrible person and he’s done so much bad in the world and I’m related to him. I have his blood in my veins, his ideas in my head——! I left when I was thirteen and I still haven’t erased him! I left, Phil, I ran away, and he’s going to be so pissed at me when I show up again to attack him...” he dropped his head in his hands, which he only just then noticed were shaking. “I..I just...”

“I know.” Phil said softly, and it took Dan a moment to realize what he said.

“What?”

“I know.” There was a smile that was soft and welcoming and it made Dan want to cry. “I figured that he was your dad.”

Dan studied him, his heart pounding and his mind racing. “How?”

Shrugging, Phil picked up Dan’s uneaten apple and tossed it in the air, catching it with ease. “Your drawings. Hate to sound like a creep, but when I was in Leonard’s house last time, I think I ended up in your room. I found this art book filled with your drawings and I kind of took it with me when I left.” 

Dan paled. “You saw that?”

“Uh.” Phil rubbed the back of his neck, at least having the decency to look embarrassed. “Yeah.”

“And you put the whole thing together with that?”

“And google. Here.” He stood up and crossed the room to his bed, digging around under the mattress and pulling out Dan’s old art studies textbook. The one his father had practically forced him to read so that he’d be ‘at least a little bit educated’ when he eventually went into the family business. “I’ve kind of been bringing this around with me.” He had the good grace to blush. “I saw the drawings and the name and I dunno.” He shrugged.

Dan took the book, flipping through it and feeling his mood drop a bit more. The drawings were from years ago, years that he hated to think back on. 

Phil was silent as he watched Dan. Dan pretended not to notice him.

The drawings were just as he had remembered them, although he had to admit that the book had not entered his mind often in the past few years. As he reached the last page of his drawings, he stopped short. “You looked through this?”

Phil nodded sheepishly. “Is that...” he cleared his throat. “Is that supposed to be you?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Dan shut the book. “I can’t go back there.”

“But——”

“I can’t.” He insisted. “He’s going to see me and he’ll either hurt me or force me to go back to working for him. He’ll hurt you when he sees that we’re working together, too.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, well, I do.” Dan sighed. “You’d better find a new partner Phil. I’m not going back to him.”

He made to stand up, but Phil grabbed his arm rather roughly, pulling him back down. “Hold up. You’re not going anywhere.”   
“You can’t force me to stay.”

“I can convince you to, though.” He raised a hand to rest against Dan’s cheek and Dan did his best not to lean into the touch. “Listen to me, okay? You know that I didn’t want you as a partner when we first met. I didn’t want to spend time getting to know you, thought that it was just going to be a waste of time. And after, Jasper, I didn’t want another person who could hurt me or get hurt because of me.”

Dan sighed.

“But you’re different,” Phil pressed, “You’re so much more than I ever expected of you.”

“You should hate me, though.” Dan supplied, finding the words surprisingly easy to get out. Maybe it was because he was speaking the truth. 

“I don’t.”

“You should.”

Phil’s hand went back to Dan’s face, and this time his other followed to rake through the curls as well. It felt good and Dan almost closed his eyes against the feeling. “You’re my partner, Dan.” He moved his hand so that it was combing continuously through Dan’s hair. “And there’s not a single person in the world that I would rather have at my side for this job.”

Dan wondered if he meant it.

“You may doubt it, but believe me when I say that you mean a lot to me. You really do, and I hate the thought of you not trusting that I’m telling the truth. Partners don’t lie to each other.”

“I lied to you.” Dan raised his eyebrows at Phil, prompting him to take the bait and to stop praising him.

“No, that doesn’t count.”

“Wha——”

“From now on.” Phil’s eyes wouldn’t stray from Dan’s and it was getting far too intense. “No more lies from now on. Got it?”

Dan nodded and almost fell into Phil’s open arms when they were offered. 

“So, are you going to work this job with me?”

Dan almost laughed at how nervous Phil sounded, although he refrained from doing so, in fear of offending his partner. 

Partner.

“Yeah.” He nodded, but the movement was cut off as he was still pressed to Phil’s side. “Yeah. I am.”

Phil exhaled sharply. “Oh thank fuck.”

This time Dan did laugh.

“What?”

“I don’t think that’s something that people say.”

“What do you know, shut up.” Phil hugged Dan tighter to his chest for a moment and in that moment, the two of them were okay.

Sure, they were broken and hurting and scared, but they were okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, I'm having a little trouble in finding motivation for writing this story. I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo so I've got more writing to do, plus school is kicking my butt but oh well. I'm writing again so wooo. Also, as of today, I'm an adult! What!? How did that happen!? Who LET that happen!?   
> Anywho, I hope you guys are enjoying this. It makes me happy when you let me know what you're thinking of it. :D  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooooops sorry I completely forgot to update yesterday! I'm currently doing Camp NaNoWriMo so I'm writing a lot, just not this fic lol enjoy!

Over the past week and a half, Dan had opened up slightly more to Phil. Their conversations lasted longer and he had spent less time gazing out the window and hunched over his drawing pad. His smile had returned, although in no way as strong as it had been when they had first met, and the dark circles under his eyes had faded.

Nevertheless, the heavy, weighted feeling of going back to his childhood home had been hanging over his head the whole time. 

They had finished up the job, Phil had been told that he couldn’t bring apples onto the plane in his suitcase, and they had headed home. 

As he had watched the pink clouds floating past his window, Phil couldn’t help thinking back to their first time flying together. He had been so adamant about not having another partner that he had pushed Dan away, most likely hurting his feelings as well, although the younger man had never brought it up. 

“Are you alright?” Dan didn’t need to lean over to speak to Phil, as their seats were right beside each other. He did, anyway. 

Sighing, Phil pulled his eyes away from the window and instead directed them to his partner. His partner that he had grown to love so much in only a few weeks. His partner who had lied to him for the entire time they had known each other. The partner that he trusted his life with. 

When had that happened?

“I’m fine.” He told Dan, wanting nothing more than to ease that worried look off his face. The kid had enough to worry about on his own. “Just thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Dan’s smile was soft and small and not at all the confident one he had shown off when the two had first met.

“You’re hilarious, Daniel.” Phil joked, taking in the slight frown at the name. It disappeared as quickly as it had shown up, but he made a mental note not to call Dan by his full name anymore. “How are you doing?”

Dan had shrugged. “I’m doing about as well as I can be doing.”

“Nervous?”

“Understatement of the century.” He had huffed back, although he didn’t look upset. “But I’ll live.”

Phil only paused for a moment before stretching out his arm over Dan’s shoulders and pulling him close to his side. He felt like the gesture was needed, but Dan’s jaw dropped.

“Did you just use the ‘stretching my arm to put it around your shoulders’ move on me, Lester?” 

Dan looked affronted. 

Phil went red.

“No, I——sorry——” Every sort of reasoning he had for actually performing the gesture went out of his mind, replaced only with a horrible, cold feeling in his stomach. “I thought the situation called for——”

“Phil, it’s fine.” Dan wasn’t laughing, but his eyes shone like they wanted to. “You can use your creepy, high school date night moves on me, if you want.”

“But I didn’t mean——”

“I know.” Dan punctuated his understanding by moving back just enough to put away the armrest that separated them. He curled closer to Phil and put his head on the man’s shoulder. “I was just being mean.”

“You’re good at that.” Phil grumbled, but he situated himself so that they could both be comfortable. For a moment, he pressed his cheek to the top of Dan’s head, but decided that that was a little too much. “I didn’t meant to make it weird.”

“You’ve seen me at my worst, Phil,” Dan was suddenly serious, his long fingers picking at the seat. “And you’re still here. I don’t care if you fucking kiss me, I’d still———” He cut off and Phil couldn’t breathe. “I mean——”

“It’s okay.” Phil managed, and pulled Dan a little closer. “It’s alright.”

The rest of the plane ride was mostly silent between them. They didn’t watch another movie. Dan fell asleep again, but this time, he was already in Phil’s arms. 

When they got off the plane, their hands stayed interlocked until they went to pick up their bags. 

*****

It was strange being back home after being away for so long. 

Phil wandered through the halls of the base, killing time until he had to meet up with his father, wondering what had happened to change him. He looked around at the halls that he had walked all his life and thought back to when he had strode to confidently through them. 

Now, he felt alone as he walked from room to room. He knew the place like the back of his hand, and yet he felt as if he’s never been there before that moment. It was like something was missing, almost, although he couldn’t figure out what it was.

He made his way to the meeting room where he was supposed to be meeting with his father and Dan in two hours, figuring that there was no harm in arriving early. It was better than wandering aimlessly through his childhood home, at least.

Phil was only sat down for about fifteen minutes before the door opened and Dan appeared, his hair disheveled like he had been repeatedly running his fingers through it. 

“Dan?”

Dan started, “Shit, what time were we supposed to meet?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket at record speed, almost dropping it on the floor. “Am I late——?”

“No, I’m just early.” Phil assured him, leaning back on his chair so that it tipped onto the two back legs. “Were you nervous too?”

Dan nodded, throwing himself down on the chair across from Phil. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Makes sense,” Phil grinned, “You slept the whole plane ride back.”

“You did too,” Dan shot at him, smiling as well but obviously more troubled. “I got a picture.”

Phil sat up straight. “Delete it. Get rid of it. Destroy it.”

Dan only laughed, already unlocking his phone. “Absolutely not, it’s adorable.”

Phil ignored the warm, twisting feeling in his gut at being called adorable and reached across the table to see the picture. He had to agree, it was rather nice to look at.

The two of them, practically in the same seat with Phil fast asleep with his head leaning against Dan’s shoulder. Dan was grinning in the picture, as if he had just heard the best news of his life, and Phil did his best to commit the smile to memory.

“Whatever.” He grumbled, although he knew that it was obvious he was pleased. 

Dan smiled softly, the laugh gone completely from his features. “Why’re you nervous?”

Sighing, Phil half heartedly let go of the slightly cheerful demeanor that was no longer the main presence in the room. “Nerves, I guess.” He shrugged, “I’m not really sure why. He’s my own father, after all, I just get nervous when I’m around him. I guess he never really felt like family after he became my boss.”

“Blood doesn’t always mean that you’re close.” Dan pointed out, and Phil felt a pang of regret for complaining about his own family when he remembered that Dan had virtually none.

“Look, I’m sorry——”

“It’s fine.” Dan brushed it off, and the false smile returned. “It’s not your fault.”

“I know, but——”

“It’s fine.” He insisted, and Phil let it go. It was like each time he felt that he was getting close to Dan, he was pushed away.

They talked about nothing for the rest of their time alone, Phil doing his absolute best not to notice everything about Dan that he had pushed away for the past few weeks. It wouldn’t be fair to him if he only now allowed himself to notice the way his hair fell in an effortless, wonderfully messy array of curls, or the bright, warm color of his eyes, or the way his smile———

“Gentlemen, I see you’re both early.”

Phil jerked out of his thoughts as his father entered the room, tossing a folder down on the table as he sat between the two. 

“Hello, sir.” Dan stood immediately and held out his hand to shake. Phil rolled his eyes and stood as well, although he only offered a nod to his father.

“I take it the two have begun getting along?” The man asked, raising an eyebrow at Phil, whom the question was clearly aimed at. 

“Yes, sir.” Phil nodded. “We...” He glanced at Dan, “we work well together.”

“Good to hear.” He bent his head over the folder and Phil’s chest tightened a little when he saw the fond look that Dan was shooting at him over the table. He smiled a little to himself, but did his best to focus instead on his father and the folder in his hand. “I trust you’ll be able to manage the Sonata job with ease, then.”

“Hope so.” Phil muttered, at the same time Dan chimed in with an, ‘Absolutely’. They glanced at each other, and Phil sighed. 

“Yeah, it’ll be fine.”

“Perfect.”

The rest of the meeting went by in a blur. Phil tried his absolute best to listen, although his mind was already making it’s way to his comfortable bed, imagining how nice it would feel to just sleep for the next century or so. It had been so long since he’d been home, and despite his bed not being very comfortable, it was his. Something that had been a constant in his life and he was just ready to sleep and be back in his own space.

Dan, on the other hand, seemed to be doing great. He was following the boss’s words with nods and hums of agreement, sometimes adding in a few words of his own. He was focused in a way that Phil wished he was, and Phil wondered if he was that committed to his work at Dan’s age. It was obvious how good Dan was at the job. He was definitely going to be the best member on the force, if he wasn’t already, and Phil was pleasantly surprised when he realized that he was perfectly okay with that. 

Dan deserved to go far, he deserved to be what Phil had wanted to be, he deserved so much more than he already had, and Phil hoped so much that he would someday get it. Love, attention, acceptance, appreciation———anything. 

“Good?”

Phil blinked and the room came back into focus around him. 

“Good.” Dan was nodding and making to stand, so Phil copied him. 

“Good.” Phil’s dad nodded at him and shook Dan’s hand. “Rest up, I’ll see you two later.”

“Yes, sir.” Phil offered a smile that was returned part way, and then the boss was gone. He let out a breath.

“Did you fall asleep?” Dan asked, a smile playing at his lips as he gathered up the folder and pushed his chair back in.

Phil sighed again. “Almost. I’m pretty sure I can’t even handle a shower right now, without falling asleep on my feet.”

Dan chuckled, “Well, don’t risk it. I don’t think I could get another partner with this short notice.”

As usual, he somehow made Phil smile. “Duly noted.” He stretched his arms above his head as he stood. “I’m heading to bed, I’ll see you at dinner?”

“Maybe,” Dan shrugged, “I might hang out in the library. Don’t want to go in unprepared, you know?”

“Better than anyone. Make sure you do eat though, okay?”

Dan agreed and they parted ways, Phil making a beeline for his room.

There was a strange sort of feeling that made him frown when he opened the door to his room. It was the same room, in the exact same messy arrangement he had left it in, but it felt so different. Had someone been in there since he’d left? Had he forgotten to do something before coming here?

Shaking his head against the thoughts, he closed the door behind him and quickly stripped down to his boxers and t-shirt, climbing between the sheets with nothing but sleep on his mind. The lights were switched off with a remote and Phil’s eyes closed and he tried to clear his mind, but nothing happened.

No matter how much he tossed and turned, Phil couldn’t seem to find sleep. There was no way to tell what it was, but it was as if something was fighting sleep away from him, keeping him in a moment of desperate want for only a few hours of unconsciousness.

It was like he could literally see sleep, just out of reach, taunting him.

After what felt like hours later, Phil was ready to give up. He sat up and gazed around the dark room that he had known for his entire life, wondering what had happened to change the whole feeling of the room. Sighing, he reached over and grabbed his phone to check the time and found a series of texts from Dan.

 

Dan: I found a book about the pets of famous serial killers in this library. Good information.  
Dan: Did you know that Dennis Nilson had a dog named Bleep  
Dan: I can’t find a book are there no librarians here????? I guess they expect us to already know how to find books.

 

Phil smiled as he read the texts, feeling a warm feeling begin to grow in his chest.

 

Phil: Did you find the book?

Dan: After a million years of looking, yeah  
Dan: Weren’t you going to sleep?

Phil: I tried, but I couldn’t

Dan: Aw

Phil: Yeah

 

They let the conversation die and Phil rolled over to lay on his back. He stared up at the ceiling, phone in hand, and tried not to think about how the brief conversation had eased his mind. 

It was just Dan, after all.

Then again, it was Dan.

Dan who had a way of calming Phil’s racing thoughts when he got too caught up in his own head. Dan who knew how to bring about smiles when it was least expected. Dan who listened and understood and trusted and cared for and———

Dan: are you going to the hall for food??

Phil: too lazy. I’ll eat later.

Dan: I’m going down there anyway, want anything?

Phil tried to frown when he felt his chest warm up, but he didn’t quite manage it.  
Phil: thanks I’ll eat anything at this point

Dan: cool

 

Phil placed the phone on the side of his bed and forced himself to get up, reluctantly letting his hopes of sleep wander off. He wandered around the room, tidying up as best he could in his sleep and food deprived state. 

At least he’d have company now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm running out of pre written chapters so I'm going to be going crazy writing over the next two weeks I think. Wish me luck lol  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyyy this is late again. Announcements at the end, enjoy!

The room was a mess and it wasn’t long before he gave up on the cleaning and instead sat down at his desk to wait for Dan to arrive. He was looking forward to it a lot more than he cared to admit, but he didn’t bother thinking too deeply on that.

After a few minutes, a knock sounded on the door. Phil called a greeting and opened the door to reveal Dan hiding behind two plates stacked high with a wide array of foods. “Room service.”

Phil grinned and grabbed one of the plates, holding open the door for Dan. He was glad Dan had brought his own food as well, now they had an excuse to talk.

It’s not like anyone would think anything of them talking, Phil realized, After all, they were partners.

“Sleep not working out?” Dan asked, making himself comfortable at Phil’s desk and leaving Phil to eat off his lap while sitting on his bed.

“Not really.” He shook his head and started eating. “’Though I’m not complaining.” He gestured towards his plate.

Dan nodded, “Glad to help out.”

They ate in relative silence, not bothering to fill the already comfortable air between them with words when quiet worked out just as well. It was reassuring to have Dan in the same room again, and Phil wondered if maybe sharing a room for the past few weeks had messed with his mind a little. Before, he had been perfectly happy to sleep and be on his own, and this newfound reliance on Dan bothered him.

Was it normal?

“So how do you actually feel about the job?” Dan had set his plate to the side and was leaning his elbows on his knees, tilting forward to watch Phil. “You know, now that we’re alone.”

The words sent a shiver down Phil’s spine, but he ignored it. “I feel like I’m not ready.” He admitted, “I mean...” It was harder to explain than he had thought. “I’ve been hearing about the Sonata family since I could understand English, I’ve been wanting to work their case for my whole life———” He cut off suddenly, realizing what he was saying. Painting Dan’s family like they were all criminals——which most of them were——but Dan wasn’t like them. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Dan assured, although he did look a little put off. “Just continue.”

Phil sighed. “I’ve been working towards this case for as long as I can remember. I’ve memorized the file on Leonard, I’ve read every book on the man I could find——hell, the guy’s son is my partner.” He choked on the last word, managing to stop himself from saying something that would change the atmosphere of the room. “But I feel like I’m still not ready, you know? Like, I don’t want to do it now because once I do it, it’ll be done.”

“It’s what you’ve been working towards and once you do it, you won’t have anything to work towards.” Dan guessed, and Phil deflated, nodding.

“I think so. It’s messed up, isn’t it? That my whole life has been to do this job?”

“Not really.” Dan smiled a little, “I mean, I don’t mean anything by this, but your father has been kind of pushing you for this, right?”

“Yeah.” Phil reached over to put his plate next to Dan’s on the desk and he lay back on his bed propping up his shoulders and head against the wall. “He has. I mean, I feel like I shouldn’t blame him because I think he acted the way he does because he’s still upset about mom.” He shrugged, “I don’t think he knows what he’s doing most of the time. He just misses her so much.”

Dan nodded slowly, although his eyebrows were furrowed in thought. “You know that parents aren’t always the heroes that you think they are, right? I’m not saying that your dad doesn’t have a right to grieve, I’m saying that he shouldn’t have neglected you the way he has because of it.”

“I know,” Phil’s neck was starting to hurt where he was leaned up against the wall, but he couldn’t be bothered to move. “I know.” He cleared his throat. “I think we got a little off topic here——”

“When we finish this job, do you already have something else to work towards?” Dan interrupted. “Other big jobs?”

Phil shook his head.

“You should take a break.”

“What, like quit?” Phil huffed, “No, I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Dan urged.

“Because.” Phil didn’t have a good reason at that moment, but he was sure that there was one. “Anyway. Are you ready for the job?”

Dan frowned a little at the change of subject, but must have decided to humor Phil a little. “I’m nervous. Obviously. But I’ll be fine.”

“Is that the truth?”

Dan hesitated. He stood up from the desk and sat down on the bed beside Phil, mirroring his position but laying his head down on the bed instead of leaning up against the wall. “Not really.”

Phil nodded and they sat next to each other for a little until Phil away from the wall and lay beside Dan. “Do you want to talk about it, or would that make it worse?”

“Make it worse.” Dan was sure. “We can talk about it all you want when we’re done, but for now let’s just leave it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Phil felt sleep creeping up on him, and he wanted to roll his eyes at himself for actually feeling sleepy now that Dan was there. They lay side by side, gazing up at Phil’s ceiling, thinking their own thoughts and being together in the most basic of ways. At some point, Phil closed his eyes and let himself relax. He listened to Dan’s even breaths and matched them to his own and pretended that he wasn’t falling asleep to the feeling of Dan beside him. 

It was a nice feeling, he had to admit, sharing a bed with someone. It was comforting, and Phil wanted nothing more than to just push himself closer to Dan so that they were pressed together. Maybe Dan would play with Phil’s hair like Phil liked to do to Dan. Maybe he would be able to feel Dan’s heartbeat against his own. Maybe Dan would trace a hand over his cheek———

Phil sighed, almost feeling his partner’s touch on his skin. It was a nice fantasy, he decided, maybe something that would help him fall asleep at some point. There was no use in hoping for it, though.

As Phil felt sleep finally taking over, he felt the strangest feeling of someone pushing his hair away from his face for a moment, but he didn’t bother staying awake to see what it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty. So.
> 
> This is the last chapter I had already written so now I've got a vague plan but no actual writing left for this. I am going to finish this, I promise! I don't enjoy not finishing fics. But this month I'm crazy busy with school and volunteering and Camp NaNoWriMo and just life so I'm going to be on a brief hiatus for this story.
> 
> I'll be back once April is over!! But midterms are tomorrow and I'm not prepared and I have other stuff due and life's just kinda being a jerk so I'll be gone for a little bit! :) Thanks for understanding, I hope you all have a lovely month, I'll be back soon<3


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaaaaack!  
> *everyone runs and hides from me*  
> Thank youuuuu all for being so nice and understanding, and sorry for the little break we had! This chapter's a little bit terrible as I wrote it really quick but I'll go back to editing it later, I promise!

The gates in front of the Sonata house looked bigger.

Phil hated thinking back on the last time he had been in front of Sonata’s house, although he knew that if he hadn’t failed that job, he most likely would have never met Dan. Still, he didn’t like thinking back on his own failures. 

You wouldn’t have met Dan, He reminded himself, Dan who listens to you and tries his best and who you know you would be lost without.

Dan, who was sitting beside Phil with shaking hands and a pale face as he tipped his head back to see the tall gates in front of them.

“You alright?”

Dan nodded, although it was obvious that he wasn’t. 

Phil didn’t push for more, only reached over and slipped his hand into his partner’s for a moment, offering a reassuring squeeze before pulling away. 

“It’s gonna be fine.”

Again, Dan nodded.

They were sat in a rented car down the street from the house, parked so that the front of the house was visible and they didn’t look too suspicious. Phil had known that it would be a long wait before Sonata was supposed to leave the house, but he hadn’t anticipated how much stress would be put on him during that time. 

Phil knew that he and his partner had reason to be nervous, but if everything went according to plan, then they wouldn’t even have to face Mr. Sonata. Phil hopes that their paths would not cross for both Dan’s and his father’s sakes. 

Extensive research had been done by both Dan and Phil, along with double checking done by Phil’s dad. In theory, this mission should go flawlessly. They both knew it. They were both nervous anyway.

“Alright, in and out, right?” Phil didn’t like the empty silence between them and he wished the clock would speed up. For most of his life, he had been ready for this job, unable to wait for his turn to solve it. Now, he just wanted to get this over with. “We don’t even see the guy and just make sure the Altar is there.”

“You make it sound easy.” Dan was fidgeting. “You know that it probably won’t go like that, right? Nothing ever goes completely to plan.”

Phil was all too aware of that. “But it probably won’t go completely wrong.” He tried reasoning, but his partner only rolled his eyes. 

“What if he sees me…” Phil didn’t try to correct Dan and say that they most likely wouldn’t meet Dan’s father. “And he tries to get me to stay with him? And work with him?”

“Then you’d say ‘no, I got myself a badass partner to work with now and I want none of your bullshit in my life’.” Phil said, pulling the lever to make his seat recline. “Damn, this car is better than I expected. Look, full reclining motions.”

“What if he doesn’t remember me at all?” Dan continued, “What if I get there and he sees me and only sees what I am, not who I am.” His foot was bouncing. “Or what if he doesn’t even care?”

“Dan.” Phil reluctantly pulled his seat back up. “It’s gonna be fine. I promise.” He couldn’t really promise that, but he did his best to stay positive for the sake of his friend. He held his hand out in an invitation, and there was barely a pause before Dan slipped his own hand into Phil’s. 

It was comforting, and although slightly awkward, Phil decided he liked it. They had done a lot worse than hold hands, but the gesture still made him blush.

*****

Dan was better at his job than Phil was, and Phil was surprisingly okay with that.

The sun had set and just as planned, Leonard Sonata’s sleek, dark blue car had pulled out of the driveway. As it sped away down the road, Dan and Phil waited impatiently in their car for another half hour to be safe. 

The tension was palpable, and despite doing his best, Phil was still unable to calm Dan down during the wait.

Now though, as they closed the small, servant’s door behind them and looked around the kitchen, Phil wondered where that scared guy had gone. 

Dan was back to being the smart, strong, capable guy that Phil had pegged him to be when they had first met. He was sure of himself again, and the shaking hands had stopped. 

Phil watched him in awe, hiding his smile. 

Despite not wanting him anywhere near him when they had first met, Phil now felt at ease with Dan at his side. 

The thought of retirement had crossed Phil’s mind once or twice, and then more often once Dan had brought it up while they had been in France. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. 

Phil had enough money to retire. He had had enough to retire by the time he was fourteen.

He just didn’t want to. He had a job and it was all he knew how to do. Sure, he’d never have to worry about working again, but what was he planning on doing with his life? The Sonata job was what had been on his mind since he was a child, and now that he was about to finish it, he had no plan as to what was going to come after.

Dan had said, “Find a new goal”, but how in the hell was he supposed to find a new goal if he wasn’t working towards the one thing that had been on his mind since he was practically crawling. 

They made their way through the house, Phil marveling at how well Dan still knew his way around the house, although he stopped in front of the line of portraits of the Sonata family line.

“I was going to be up there.” Dan stood in front of the empty space where his picture would be. He looked at the plaque like it was going to give him an answer.

“Yeah.” Phil agreed. He remembered seeing the empty portrait for the first time and wondering who Daniel Sonata was. Now, he reached out a hand and touched his partner’s shoulder, gently pushing him away from the wall. “Hey. You’re not like him.” He guided Dan away, “You were never like him and you never will be like him. Okay?”

Dan nodded, “I know. I’m fine.”

“That’s right.” Phil led them to the stairs, doing his best to keep his voice soft. “Now let’s get this over with, huh? And then we can go home.”

It was with surprising ease that they found the Altar, although it had been moved since Phil had last been in the house. He almost stopped outside Dan’s bedroom before realizing that no matter how much he wanted to see it with fresh eyes, it would most likely slow down the mission and bring back unwanted memories to his partner. 

When the found the Altar, it was like a dream come true. It was beautiful, just the way Phil had remembered seeing it and he fought back the urge to touch it. 

“This is it then.” Dan muttered to the empty room, his eyes trapped on the artwork in front of him. “It’s here. We’re done.”

“Call the cops,” Phil agreed, also staring, “Arrest Sonata. Go home.”

Neither could quite believe that the mission was so close to being over.

“Go home.” Dan repeated.

It was then that the door behind them opened.

“Daniel.” The words turned Phil’s blood cold. “I’ll be honest, I hadn’t been expecting you to show up here again for quite some time.”

Both Dan and Phil turned to see Leonard Sonata standing behind them, gun in hand.

Dan swallowed. “Hey Dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are getting exciting woop  
> I have another chapter after this already written (I wrote two chapters today yay go me) so I'M BACK TO UPDATING (FAIRLY) OFTEN :D  
> I finished my camp Nano story and I'm kinda thinking about turning it into a fic later cause it wasn't terrible so. let me know if you want more garbage.   
> Thanks again to all ya'll for being patient with me, it means a lot to still get comments on my fic even when I'm not currently writing :)  
> Lots of stuff has been happening in my world and it's kinda crazy but you know what. I'm doing alright. I really am. so that's good lol  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooooo all! I hope you're having a great week!! Enjoy the chapter!! Dan's POV

Dan was scared.

More scared than he had been in a long time, even more than when he had found out that his dad was a murderer or when he thought that Phil had died in that car accident.

No, all of that seemed like a minor fright compared to this.

Dan’s father stood in front of them with a gun held loosely in his hand, a smile on his face that had chills running up and down Dan’s spine. Sure, he had expected to run into his father at some point in his life, he just hadn’t been expecting it so soon.

“I’ve missed you, kid.” Sonata said, his eyes crinkled with a smile. “You and your mom. You know, it killed me when she took you away.”

“She took me away because of what you were doing.” Dan swallowed hard. He hadn’t anticipated that talking to his father would scare him so much. “You know that. She was only protecting us.”

The man sighed and Dan saw Phil tense out of the corner of his eye. “Kid, your mother used to love me. And one day when she decided that she didn’t, she took you from me. Worst day of my life.”

“You didn’t seem to broken up about it on the news.” Dan shot back. He had seen the stories. About how Sonata had immediately remarried and left behind any trace of Dan and his mother. Of course, he was happy being away from the toxic man, but it had still stung a little bit. “You didn’t love me or mom. You just wanted to keep the family business going.”

Sonata shrugged, the gun in his hand briefly pointing upwards at the ceiling. “I’ll admit that I did want you to help me in our line of work,” He smiled and it was such a welcoming, trusting, loving smile that Dan’s heart ache. “But I loved you. I still do. You can’t even imagine what it felt like to have you taken away from me.”

“Mr. Sonata,” Phil jumped into the conversation and Dan was grateful. He didn’t think he could manage any words until he relaxed. “You have been caught having possession of this Altar Piece. You know as well as I do that you’re not supposed to have this.”

“Daniel, you’ve made a friend.” Sonata ignored Phil, smiling fondly at his son instead. “He’s cute, but where are his manners? I do hope that his behavior hasn’t rubbed off on you. I trained you so well.”

Dan flinched, his hands in fists at his sides. Damn, he wasn’t supposed to be getting this worked up over this encounter. Find the painting, call the boss, get the hell out of there. What had been so hard about that?

Phil was smiling back at Leonard with a hard look in his eyes. “You’re not going to get away this time, Sonata.” His smile looked like it hurt. Like it was cutting into his cheeks. “I’ve been working on this case my whole life. You’re not——”

“Didn’t do a very good job of it then, did you?” Leonard cut in lazily. “Listen, this is between my son and I. Don’t try and join in.”

“Don’t call me your son.” Dan ground out, “You were never my father and you never will be.”

It hurt so fucking bad to say those words. 

“You’re always going to be a Sonata, Daniel.” Leonard smiled, the gun still sitting comfortably in his hands. “You can’t just pretend that you don’t know who you are.”

“Mom and I left because we didn’t want to be Sonata’s anymore. And we aren’t. We won’t ever be again. There’s nothing you can do to change that.” His sentences were coming out in fractures, but at least they were coming out. 

“You can be, though,” Sonata urged, “My son, you can come back to me.”

Oh.

“You can come home, Daniel. I’ve changed. I——”

“You killed someone!” Dan burst out, and he saw both Phil and Leonard flinch. “You fucking murdered someone and it was in the papers and I had to read about it myself! I had to find out in a newspaper that you’re a murderer and you’re asking me to come back to you?!”

“Daniel, it was a mistake! I made a mistake!” He looked oddly desperate. Oddly human. “You think I don’t regret it?”

“I don’t know.” Dan cried, “Okay? I don’t know! I don’t know you!”

Silence entered the room and sat down to watch the fight. It listened.

Phil’s hand against the small of Dan’s back made him jump. 

“Hey.” It was soft, a gentle reminder that he was there. That Dan was there. 

“I’m okay.” He said and he was lying.

“Daniel.” Sonata had dropped his arm so that the gun pointed at the ground. “I’m sorry. You hear me? I’m so sorry. For everything——for your mother and for you and for everything that I took away from you. And you have a right to hate me.”

“Yes…?” Dan wasn’t sure where it was going, but the ache in his chest was back. It was a reminder, he guessed, that he didn’t have the family that he wanted. It was a reminder of what he had left behind all those years ago, of what he had tried to forget, of what he hated about himself. And it hurt that he wanted to forgive the man before him.

“And I don’t think I can ever do anything to do right by you again.” Sonata continued, “But I can try so hard to be who you need me to be. I can try to be your father and I can try to make this better,” He gestured between the two of them. “Just…give me a chance.”

“Dan.” Phil warned, but it was all he said. 

“We can try again.” 

Dan wanted to. God, he wanted to so bad. He imagined himself with a father and he almost ran into the man’s arms right then and there. 

Almost.

“You’re going to be arrested.” He told Sonata, not even allowing himself to think the word “father”. “And you’re not getting out.”

Sonata’s shoulders slumped. 

“And I’m not going to see you again.” Dan swallowed hard, pushing back a little into the comfort of Phil’s hand on his back. “And I’m going to be okay.”

Leonard sighed, “Why do you have to be like this, Daniel.” His arm raised once again and the gun was back at pointing at Dan. “We could have done so much.”

Dan didn’t say anything. Phil stepped in. 

“Mr. Sonata, you are not going to be a part of Dan’s life. I don’t believe you’ve ever meant anything to him and we’re not going to miss you when you’re finally gone.”

It wasn’t true, but Dan didn’t try to correct Phil about it. He didn’t think he could manage any more words.

“Did you tell him this?” Leonard cocked his head at Phil. “Did you tell him that I don’t mean anything? Did you tell him that you’re not going to miss me?”

Phil hesitated. “I—I don——”

“Of course.” The gun moved half a foot to the left and Phil stared down the barrel. “Of fucking course. It’s you, isn’t it?”

“No, Phil——” Dan tried to defend.

“Phil!” Sonata sounded gleeful. “Daniel and Phil! You’re the reason he’s come back! You’re the reason he wants me gone!” He grinned and Dan’s fear crept back. “You’re the one——”

“Leonard!” Dan cut in, fear gripping him tight, but he fought it off. “He’s not a part of this. Leave him out. This is between you and me.”

“Of course.” Leonard agreed, “I’m so sorry, son.”

And he pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry?   
> I couldn't resist a cliffhanger ;)  
> I've been writing a lot these past few days and it's GREAT! It's not really good writing but i'm writing so that's a win, right? I'm working on a short story that i'm not sure about yet, but i'm hoping it's good lmao   
> ALSO. I was feeling sad the other day and so I looked over comments that you guys have left and it made me so HAPPY omg. It was so nice to read all these nice things that you've said so thank you so much ya'll don't know how much it means to me.  
> Anyway. Wishing ya'll a good week!  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay technically where i am it's still wednesday so   
> this chapter switches from Phil's to Dan's POV, just a heads up   
> Enjoy!

Phil had been shot before. 

He knew what it felt like and he knew where the bullet would have to land to make it fatal and he knew how to muscle through a bullet in his skin, but that didn’t really mean that it didn’t hurt.

The impact of the bullet shoved him to the floor, barely giving him enough time to throw his hands out in front of him to protect his face from the floor rushing up to greet him.

Faintly, there was a shout of “Phil!”, but the shock and pain of being shot was momentarily distracting and he ignored it. His hands found the wound on the side of his thigh, could feel the bullet still beneath his skin——he felt sick. 

Calm down, you’ve been through this before, calm down…

He managed a look up at Dan who was still facing Leonard with his hands halfway in the air, like he knew that his father wasn’t going to hurt him. He stood between Sonata and Phil, stance tense like he was ready to block another shot towards Phil. The thought both warmed and worried Phil.

“Phil, you okay?” It seemed like Dan was more surprised and hurt about the bullet than Phil was. He didn’t run to Phil’s side like it looked like he wanted to, but his shoulders tensed and his fists curled up. He didn’t even dare a look back. 

“Never better.” Phil mumbled, sitting up a little and reaching for his own gun. He’d have a terrible vantage point from the floor, but his leg wasn’t going to allow him to get up anytime soon. The main thought in his mind was to protect Dan, even though he knew that his partner could most likely handle himself. 

“You’re not getting away with this.” Dan told Leonard, but the man looked like he didn’t care.

“When you’re ready to talk, come find me in the lounge.” Sonata said cooly, and left the both of them alone with the altar piece. 

Dan and Phil stayed frozen where they were until they heard the door shut and footsteps lead away from the room.

“Phil!” Dan was on his knees, in a second, dropping down and taking Phil’s face in his hands. “Where’d you get shot? Can you see me clearly?”

“Dan, I’m fine.” Phil gently pulled Dan’s fluttering hands away from his face. “He got me in the leg, but I’ve had worse. I promise.”

“I’m going to kill him.” He squeezed Phil’s hands tightly in his own, “I swear, I’m gonna——”

“Calm down,” Freeing one of his hands, Phil pushed Dan’s hair back from his face. “You’re going to have to face him alone. You know that right?”

Dan shook his head, “No, I’ll get you on your feet. It’ll be fine.”

“Dan, stop. Listen to me. If he sees me with you again, he’s not going to aim at my leg. He wants to talk to you alone and he’s not going to let me stop him. I’ll call the force and get backup when you go. I just need you to stall long enough for them to get here. Okay?”

“No, we were gonna do this together, remember? Dan and Phil, unstoppable team and all that? I’m not leaving you behind.”

“For fucks sake, Dan,” Phil rolled his eyes, “I’m not dying. I’m not being ‘left behind’, I’m literally a few rooms away from you.”

Dan shrugged, “Still. I don’t want to leave you here.”

“I’ll be fine. I know you can do this.” Without thinking, Phil leaned forward and pressed a careful kiss against Dan’s forehead. 

It surprised him only a little when Dan leaned into the touch, but he pulled away before he could get distracted. 

“You’ll be fine.” He promised again, taking in the shocked look on Dan’s face. “I promise.”

Dan nodded, bringing Phil’s hand up to his lips in response, kissing his palm briefly before getting up and leaving the room without saying anything.

*****

DAN’S POV 

“Where have you been all these years, Daniel?” Sonata’s voice hits Dan like a punch in the gut, reminding him of both good and bad memories. “Where did you and your mother go when you left?”

Dan shrugged, closing the door to the lounge behind him. He wanted to slow down Sonata in any way possible, should he decide to go after Phil. “All over the place. We were happy being away.”

“Do you know how much that broke me?” Sonata looked so disturbingly empathetic and Dan looked at the floor, not wanting to see his father in that way. “Do you know how much I loved your mother, how much I loved you?”

“If you had loved us,” Dan spat back, “You wouldn’t have done all that stuff that drove us away. You wouldn’t have kept doing it after we left.”

“I made mistakes.” Sonata shrugged helplessly. “Everyone makes mistakes, Daniel, are you not going to forgive your father for a mistake?”

“A mistake?!” Dan’s head shot up and heat raced through his veins, “You call murder a mistake?! How were you even surprised when we left you?!”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Sonata shot back. The gun was still in his hand, but his finger wasn’t anywhere near the trigger. That didn’t make Dan feel any better. “I was protecting you, but neither you nor your mother saw that!”

Dan took a step back, not wanting to believe. Leonard hadn’t killed for Dan, right?

“I was protecting you.” Leonard repeated. “And you left. And I tried so hard to get you back.” He stepped forward, destroying the space between him and his son. 

“Is that what you call protecting your family? I had seen death when I was eight years old. Eight! Do you know how hard that is to live with?!”

Leonard scoffed, “You always were a dramatic child.” He placed the gun on the bookcase beside him and Dan eyed it. How hard would it be to grab it? Probably fairly easy, but the thought of pointing a gun at his father made his stomach churn.

“Maybe I am dramatic.” Dan shrugged, doing his best to not show off the confusion and anger and fear that lived inside him. “Who knows. But not a night has gone by that I don’t think about it. Kids aren’t supposed to come down for dinner one day and find a body in the kitchen! They’re not supposed to run and hide in their room when they hear their father yelling! They’re not supposed to read about how their father fucking murders someone in the newspapers!” He gasped for breath, trying to stay calm.

“I didn’t kill that man in the kitchen.” Sonata scolded, “I told you that. Why didn’t you believe me?”

“You killed Randell.” 

There was a pause. “He was getting too close.”

“And what would have happened if mom or I had gotten too close, huh?” Anger was still present in Dan’s mind, but just plain exhaustion was beginning to take over. He just wanted the day to be done. “And what happens now? I’ve seen the Altar. I know you have it. What’s keeping you from killing me right now?”

“We’re family, Daniel.” Leonard smiled and it wasn’t a nice smile. “You may not like me, but you don’t want to see me dead. Do you?”

Dan didn’t, but he didn’t say anything. He felt trapped. 

“You’re not going to betray your own father over a painting, are you?”

Dan fought the urge to shake his head. Or nod. He wasn’t sure which one was right. 

“Because then you’d be responsible for my death. Another ghost to keep you up at night.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want my son back.”

“No.” Dan tried backing up again, but he was against the wall. “I’m not coming back to you.”

“Okay, we’ll put it this way.” Sonata looked far too pleased with himself. “You come back to me, and I’ll let that friend of your’s live.”

Phil.

“Phil’s going to be fine without your help.” Dan tilted his chin upwards. “You can’t hold that over me.”

“And yet you’re still scared I can.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Am I?” Leonard grinned. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay okay okay this was kinda a filler chapter. I promise it'll get better but I've been writing a whole lot of stuff and it hasn't been this so sorrrrryyyyyyyy  
> also lemme just say that I LOVE the feedback ya'll are giving me. Your comments give me life and make me smile so so so much so thanks :D  
> tumblr: @phailingphantastically


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I felt bad that the last chapter sucked so here's another chapter and you'll get another one tomorrow so merry christmas or something lmao

Dan knew that he could never go back to his father.

The man was a murderer, a thief, a con artist, someone who just didn’t care about Dan or his well being.

So then why the hell was he finding it hard to say no to him?

“Wine?”

Dan shook his head.

He and Leonard were sitting opposite each other, Dan straight up and tense and Leonard completely relaxed, like he had complete faith in Dan’s inability to leave at that moment.

The half full wine glass in Leonard’s hand taunted Dan, reminding him that while he was just fucking sitting there, chatting and talking with this man, Phil was alone a few rooms away. Phil who was bleeding and probably scared and so, so, so worth fighting for.

Dan hoped and prayed to anything or anyone that might be listening that the force was already on it’s way and that they’d be able to leave soon. 

“Daniel.” Sonata crossed his leg over his knee, settling back in his chair with a sort of confidence Dan wished he possessed at that moment. “I know that what I did was wrong.”

Dan almost wanted to ask what it was he was apologizing for, before realizing that it didn’t matter. The force would be on it’s way soon and then he and Phil could go home. Maybe they could run away and go back to France. The daydream threatened to take over, and Dan shoved it aside for the moment.

“I know that it was practically unforgivable and that I shouldn’t be granted a second chance, but Daniel,” He looked desperate, “You’re the only family I have left. You’re everything for me.” 

Dan swallowed hard. Phil, Phil’s life is on the line right now, don’t get distracted——

“We’re blood, son.” 

That last word hurt more than anything else Sonata had said.

“We’re family.” The glass of wine was resting on the side table again and Dan resisted the urge to grab it and down the whole thing in one go. “And you’re going to give me up like that? Turn me in without giving me a second chance?”

“You don’t deserve a second chance!” Dan burst, almost knocking over his own empty wine glass. He had declined any sort of drink and was grateful to have his head in focus during the conversation. “Do you know how much you hurt mom and I? Do you think that once we left we were just fine again?” He leaned forward. “Leaving you killed her, despite knowing that it was the best option for both of us!”

“You didn’t have to leave.” Leonard sighed and Dan deflated. Faintly, he thought he could hear sirens through the open window, but that may have just been his imagination and hope. 

“Neither of us had to do a lot of things, saying sorry like this isn’t going to fix them.”

Silence crept towards them, taking a place at their feet. It fit well between them. 

“Listen, Leonard——”

“Why don’t you call me dad?”

Dan shook his head, more at himself than at Sonata, “You lost that right a long time ago. Now——”

“No, you know what?” he moved so fast that Dan barely had time to pull out his own gun before Leonard had one pointed towards Dan. “No. You’re my kid. I get some right to be a part of your life.” 

Both held fast, their weapons both pointing at the other in an act of distrust. 

Who would shoot first?

Would anyone shoot at all?

Neither were willing to risk it.

“Put the gun down,” Dan warned, doing his best to calm his racing heart. “You know you’re not going to shoot me.”

“And you’re not going to shoot me either.” Leonard shrugged, “And yet here we are.”

Please Phil, Dan begged in his mind, Please say you told the force, please tell me that they’re on their way. 

Almost like it was answering his prayer, a faint sound of sirens floated through the air.

Dan almost collapsed in relief.

Leonard paled.

“My son,” He tried, “My son, you did this? You betrayed me?”

Dan almost shook his head, but he couldn’t lie. 

“It’s all well.” Leonard lowered his gun and started towards Dan, “I’ll be gone by the time they get here.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

Leonard shrugged, “What are you going to do to stop me?” he shouldered past his son, hand resting on the doorknob. “I only wish you had chosen to come with me.”

Dan’s grip on the gun tightened, his finger twitching on the trigger. 

“Put the gun away, Daniel.” Leonard admonished, “You’re not going to shoot and you know it.”

“I can’t let you leave and get away with this.” Dan adjusted his stance, trying to ignore shaking throughout his entire body. “I will not let you go through that door.”

Leonard smiled. “Alright son.” He opened the door. “We’ll see each other again, though. Until then—”

“I will shoot.”

“I hope that you do well. You were going to be great, my boy——”

“Don’t take another step.”

“You and me, together against anything.”

“I don’t want to shoot you.”

“Do yourself a favor and get yourself a real partner, yeah?” Leonard grinned, “That boy is no good for you.”

“Leonard…” 

“Goodbye.” The smile that was handed to Dan was in no way comforting. “And——”

“I’m so sorry.” Dan said, and he pulled the trigger.

There was no surprise on Leonard’s face, only disappointment. “My son,” he whispered to the floor, “My boy, my little boy…”

And Dan couldn’t answer. 

He just cried and cried and cried and cried and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright so listen up  
> I'm doing my best to try and keep this interesting but I'll be honest, my motivation to get ANYTHING done has been disappearing faster than normal.   
> Because of this, my writing has not been that great lately and I can't get stuff done and it's frustrating as HELL. I am going to finish this, I'm working on the last chapter rn but it'll probably be the same quality as these last few chapters have been :/  
> Sooooo sorry for this lil self depreciating speech lmao I promise I'm trying to get stuff doneeeeee  
> Have a good uh, day I guess before I update again? :D  
> tumblr: phailingphantastically


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second last chapter ya'll!  
> idk about you guys but this seemed to go by really quick and really slow at the same time  
> This chapter switches POV halfway through so keep an eye out for that.  
> Anywho.  
> Enjoy!

Phil woke up to a headache, a pain in his leg and the sound of a pencil on paper.

Barely conscious enough to count as awake, the only thing in his mind at the moment was the last thing he remembered before passing out. 

The paramedics rushing to his side and the only words he was able to say had been Dan’s name, over and over again like a mantra. All sense of pain and anger were shoved to the side as only the fear he had for Dan’s life took over.

He knew that Dan could most likely handle himself——no, he knew Dan could handle himself——but that didn’t stop the worry that took over his mind from the moment Dan had left the room after Leonard.

Now as he woke up with no memory of anything happening after the paramedics had arrived, the fear returned. He wasn’t sure where he was, his eyes fighting to keep closed, but the bed he was in did not feel familiar. The whole atmosphere of the room was different and he didn’t like it.

“Dan?” He tried, but his throat ached and his words turned into a quiet groan of pain.

“Phil?”

Relief flooded Phil’s mind and he relaxed against the pillows. “Dan.” He tried again, but with the same results as before. Peeking an eye open, he saw his partner perched on the side of the unfamiliar bed, a hotel pad of paper and pen in his hand. 

“You awake?”

Phil managed a nod and forced his eyes open all the way and half sat up against the pillows. “Where…” He trailed off, noticing the obvious tear tracks down Dan’s face and switched topics. “Are you okay? What happened? Are you hurt?”

Dan shook his head, but Phil wasn’t sure which of his questions he was answering. His grip on the pen in his hand was strong enough to turn his knuckles white and Phil was sure he was going to snap the pen.

“What happened?” He asked softly, reaching out a hand to cover Dan’s. Dan’s grip on the pen relaxed. “Are you hurt?”

Dan shook his head again, pressing his hand against Phil’s own. “I’m not hurt.”

“Okay,” Phil let out a breath of relief. “Good.” He ran a hand through his hair. “And the altar?”

“We have it.” Dan’s head was bowed, “We did our job.”

“And where are we?”

“I booked a hotel. Didn’t want to go back to the base. Brought you here after the meds were done with you.”

Things were looking up.

“And Leonard?”

And just like that, Dan broke.

It was like he shattered and it was all Phil could do to lean over and hold him as his whole body shook with what Phil assumed were tears.

“Dan?”

They weren’t at a comfortable angle, both momentarily noticing it but doing nothing to fix it.

Phil did his best to offer comfort, running his hands through Dan’s hair and whispering nonsense to him until he managed to calm down enough to at least move up beside Phil against the pillows.

“Better?”

Dan nodded and they wrapped their arms around each other and did nothing.

Phil wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but at some point Dan had fallen asleep. He was just about to follow suit when Dan shifted against him a little and whispered, “I shot my dad.”

“Are you talking in your sleep?”

Dan shook his head no and continued. “I shot him, Phil.”

Phil pressed a kiss against the top of Dan’s head. “Okay.”

“I thought I couldn’t do it but he was going to leave and you were hurt and I couldn’t just let him…”

“I know.”

 

DAN

Phil knew.

It was okay.

Only it wasn’t.

Dan allowed Phil to play with his hair and repeatedly tell him that it was alright, even though he didn’t quite believe it.

He had shot someone, his own father nonetheless, and he hated himself for not feeling guilty.

He should be completely torn up about it, right? He should be in tears and wallowing in guilt and running to his father who would most likely be in a holding cell at that moment and beg for forgiveness. 

But he didn’t and he wasn’t and the shame of that ate him up. 

Doing what he did——shooting someone without remorse——that was something Leonard did. That was something that the Sonata’s did. That’s apparently something that Dan did as well.

He was no better than his father. He knew that now. 

He was a Sonata. Daniel Sonata. He should be locked up. He should be taken away from Phil and put in prison because what he had done was wrong and how could no one else see that?

How could Phil still be holding him like he was? How could he mean it when he said that Dan was safe? How could he even bear to touch him when there was blood on his hands?

He snuggled closer to Phil’s side. He didn’t deserve this.

“Dan?”

“I’m sorry.”

The movement in Dan’s hair stopped for a moment and he waited for Phil’s response. But then, as if nothing had happened, Phil’s hand went right back to moving, combing his fingers through the tangles in Dan’s curls. “What are you sorry for?”

“That you need to get a new partner. That you have to deal with me,” he sniffed, “That I’ve tricked you.”

“Tricked me?” Phil exhaled sharply and it sounded like a laugh. “How?”

“I tricked myself, too.” Dan continued, not sure who he was talking to. Phil, maybe? Or himself? Or that vase of fake flowers on the table to their right? “I thought I could be Howell and not Sonata, but I’m just like him, Phil, I’m just like him.”

“Like Leonard?” Phil pulled away from Dan for a second and frowned. “No. No way. You’re definitely a Howell.”

“I shot him, Phil.” It was suddenly very important that Phil knew this, “I shot my own father. And I don’t even——” 

feel bad about it.

“That doesn’t make you him.” Phil assured, gaze too intense for Dan to meet. “Do you hear me? You are not him.”

“Yet.” Dan amended stubbornly, “I could turn into him.”

“You won’t.”

“I might.”

“You won’t.” Phil repeated, “Because you know better. You’re so much better than him, Dan. So much better than he ever could be.”

“I wanted to go with him.” Dan confessed, mostly to Phil’s shoulder. He didn’t want to look his partner in the eyes. “I wanted to go with him so badly.” His chest ached at the confession.

“And you didn’t.” Phil placed two fingers beneath Dan’s chin and lifted it so that their eyes met. “Which makes you so much better.”

Dan shrugged, “Whatever.” 

Phil didn’t answer or try to fight back, only pulled Dan a little closer to him and rested his cheek on top of Dan’s head.

They didn’t talk or argue or agree or anything. 

Both thought to themselves, ‘I don’t deserve him’, and drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pobrecitos, i'm so mean to my characters  
> I hope you liked it! I'm finishing up the last chapter at the moment, so this story will be wrapping up pretty darn soon lmao   
> Thanks for sticking with it so far!  
> tumblr: @phailingphantastically


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter ya'll!  
> I'll get sentimental in the end notes lmao enjoy!  
> This chapter is written with kind of both their points of view :)

Dan wasn’t doing well, but Phil pretended not to notice. He wasn’t doing much better. 

For a week after the Sonata heist, Dan had stayed practically glued to Phil’s side. Their hands pressed against each other’s under the table during meals, they spent hours in the library doing nothing but reading side by side and Phil had lost count of the times Dan had fallen asleep on him. They were rarely apart and when they were, it caused stress in both them and the people around them.

Dan had nightmares almost every night, more often than not forcing him out of bed and leaving him knocking at Phil’s door in the middle of the night, quietly asking for a sleepover to which Phil never refused. They were long past it being weird to share a bed and soon it became weird when Dan wasn’t there to cuddle against in the middle of the night.

His face had lit up like a Christmas tree when Phil proposed they just start of the nights together instead of both having to wake up in the middle of it.

There wasn’t much Phil could do to help Dan while he tossed and turned in his sleep, but the comfort of having his best friend right there next to him when he woke up was able to lull Dan back to sleep on most nights. If anyone else noticed that Dan’s room was all but abandoned now and that he and Phil always left the same room in the mornings, they didn’t say anything.

While it was a good problem to have out of the way, both still knew that there was a long way to go. Dan curled in on himself when his thoughts got the better of him, hiding from anyone except Phil, but not talking for hours. Phil wandered the familiar halls without a purpose, his mind wondering what to do and where to go next.

Neither knew what to do, but they found comfort in each other. 

Phil’s father had offered his congratulations when they had returned home from the Sonata heist, but hardly looked impressed. Somehow, this hurt Phil in a way that he never imagined. It had taken barely two days before a folder was handed to Dan and Phil with the words: “Your next job.”

Phil had closed himself off upon receiving it and Dan had taken him back to his room, holding his hand and telling him that it was alright.

Neither could handle the thought of another job, despite being literally trained for it for their entire lives. More and more often, Phil would daydream about running away with Dan, maybe back to France or someplace new. He imagined taking his partner’s hand and taking a plane to anywhere except the place he had called home for his entire life.

He imagined running away and never coming back.

He brought it up to Dan who laughed softly and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s crazy, you know that right?”

Phil had nodded, but didn’t ignore the gentle hand slip into his own as Dan leaned a little closer to his side. 

He wasn’t sure what to call what the two of them shared, but he didn’t bother questioning it. He and Dan were close, closer than Phil had even been with Jasper, and he loved it. He had someone around to talk to, to trust, to listen to, and he couldn’t be more grateful, despite the open end to their relationship. 

Phil pretended that he was okay to everyone that wasn’t Dan, who knew him too well to believe any lies that Phil told. He promised that he had just ‘had a rough night’, or ‘didn’t sleep that great’, but the dark circles under his eyes didn’t leave. The heaviness that weighed down on his shoulders didn’t ease up. His mind still felt too full to properly think of anything for too long and it was frustrating as hell.

He didn’t know what to do.

For all of his life, he been trained, groomed for the Sonata job that would make or break his career. He had heard stories about the Sonata family and had daydreamed about being the one to finally put them behind bars, but now.

Now he had nothing.

What do you do when you suddenly have no purpose? No plan for the future? Not even someone to point the right way to go? 

And what would he do next? More jobs? The same, stupid, meaningless, monotonous jobs that used to be a reason to get up in the mornings. His motivation was gone and he didn’t know why.

“It’s okay that you’re scared.” Dan has whispered to him one night, making Phil jump because he had thought that Dan was asleep.

“I know.”

“But you’ll figure out what you want. Even if it means changing stuff that you’re used to or leaving what you used to call familiar.”

They both knew that Dan was suggesting that Phil quit the force, but neither mentioned it. It was obvious in what Dan said though, that if Phil left then so would he. 

It was a slight relief for Phil and it offered him a few hours of actual, restful sleep.

Days passed, weeks even, and both Dan and Phil were stuck where they were. Dan, because of the nightmares and intrusive thoughts that still plagued him and Phil because of the crushing force of uncertainty. Equally vicious opponents, each putting up one hell of a battle for their respective victims.

Phil’s father was an added force of this, firmly pressing the two of them to start another job while the ball was still rolling. Phil wanted to mention that he doubted there even was a ball anymore, but he kept that to himself and Dan. 

After a few awkward, forced conversations between Phil and his father, Phil threw himself into work like he never had before. Dan had told the force that he was taking a break and wasn’t pressured into anything the way Phil was, and he never forgot to remind Phil that he could easily do the same, but Phil refused. 

It was like he suddenly had an overwhelming amount of motivation, pushing his hands to turn pages and his mind to process words and information, but he still got nothing done. He spent hours poring over books and screen, doing his best to finish up the case so that he could at least say that he’d done something. He piled the books near the bed he now shared with Dan, filling any available space in the room.

Dan said nothing, only moved the books off of his side of the bed before they went to sleep.

After three days of nonstop research, Phil realized that he was still no closer to solving the case.

He hadn’t gotten anything done, except for ruining his and Dan’s sleeping schedule even more than it already had been. 

Phil lied to his father and co-workers about the work he was getting done, smiling and laughing along with them and curling up against Dan when he got back to their room, hiding his face and taking comfort in the way they fit together.

When it got to the point of Phil actively avoiding his father so that he wouldn’t have to be stuck in another conversation about the job, Dan stepped in.

“Just tell him you need a break.”

“No, that’s not true though.” Phil shook his head, “I can’t lie.”

Dan raised an eyebrow, worry apparent in his features. “It’s not a lie. Phil, you haven’t done anything productive here in the last two weeks. Even if you didn’t want to take a break, you took one anyway.”

“Well then, I’m done with my break and I need to get back to work.”

“Phil, you’re miserable.” Dan had shoved him down onto one of the uncomfortable chairs in Phil’s room. “You’re not sleeping, you’re driving yourself crazy with this. It’s hard, I know that better than anyone, but you can’t force yourself to do something when you’re clearly not ready.”

“It’s my job, though.” Phil pleaded, “It’s all I know how to do!”

“You know that’s not true.” Dan held his hand tight and it felt good. “I know that’s not true.”

Phil hung his head and agreed to take it easy, but within the next four days, Dan caught him slumped over in the library, having fallen asleep over his books. 

It would have been (relatively) fine, if it hadn’t been for the amount of times Phil’s father caught him doing the same thing.

Angry conversations and steady apologies were heard from outside the library doors, making anyone within earshot to ease themselves away and force themselves to focus on something else. It took Dan three of these arguments before he even knew that they were happening.

“Where is the man I raised?!”

Dan would have flinched if he wasn’t practically running towards the fight. Someone had told him about it and he hadn’t even let them finish talking before he was gone.

“What happened to you? Why can’t you handle a single job now; You used to be taking on two at a time when you were younger!”

There was a mumbled apology and Dan rounded one of the bookcases.

Phil stood, a stack of books on the table and a sharp corner or red pressed into his cheek, presumably where he had fallen asleep against the pages. He didn’t cower before his intimidating father, didn’t even break eye contact as he took the lecture.

“You could have——!”

“Hey.” Dan didn’t yell or raise his voice, but it cut through the shouting and the room fell silent. It was like even the books were listening. “Phil. Are you alright?”

“Fell asleep again.” Phil shrugged like it was no big deal, but Dan had shared a bed with him for weeks now and knew that his partner hadn’t slept nearly enough. “I’m fine.”

“Howell.” The boss turned towards Dan, obviously annoyed. “This doesn’t concern you. This is between my son and I.”

“Actually, it does concern me.” He smiled falsely at the man and walked towards his friend, gently holding onto his arm. “I’m his partner.”

“Ex partner.” The boss corrected, “You quit.”

“Working or not, I’m still his partner.” Dan replied smoothly, keeping his hand on Phil’s arm as both reassurance that he was there and to make sure that he didn’t pass out right then from sleep exhaustion.

“Dan.” Phil muttered, “I’m fine.”

“Like hell you are.” Dan frowned, pulling Phil a little closer. Phil did not deserve to be yelled at, especially not when he was like this. He turned to Phil’s father. “Phil’s going to be taking a break.” He informed him, surprised but not upset when Phil didn’t bother correcting him.

“The hell you mean by that.” The boss’ eyes narrowed and he looked downright murderous.

“I mean,” Dan stood up a little straighter, “That Phil and I are going to be taking a break from the force. Whether or not we come back will be decided later.” He turned towards his partner, “Ready to go?” 

Phil nodded and Dan set his jaw, tilting his head back a little to make firm eye contact with the man before him. “I would like to say,” He narrowed his eyes, “That you are a pathetic excuse for a human and an even worse father.”

For a moment, he felt bad that he was saying it in front of Phil, but the relieved look on Phil’s face told him that it was okay. He locked their hands together and squeezed tightly.

“You had no right to raise your son the way you did and blaming it all on grief is a pathetic excuse. Death hurts, but you kind of get used to it. It’s about time you did.”

Without bothering to look back, Dan walked out of the room, Phil’s hand curled tightly around his own. 

*****

They packed without a destination in mind, without an idea of when they would be returning, or even if they would be returning at all. 

They packed with smiles on their faces and hope in their hearts and ideas of adventures together in their minds and it was okay. They laughed and joked and cried only a little and it was okay.

“Where do you want to go?”

Dan laughed, unable to believe that they were actually leaving. Together. “I don’t care. Anywhere.”

“Japan? Haven’t been there before. You think it’s too far for now?” Phil had paused his packing for a moment before Dan hugged him tightly from behind, resting his forehead against Phil’s shoulder.

“Phil, I’d fly to the fucking moon with you,” He tilted his head to look at his partner, who smiled back at him. “Japan sounds great.”

The empty room that had served as Phil’s childhood home didn’t seem sad to see him go, and the same when for him and it. 

Phil had the door knob in his hand, a backpack over his shoulder and a suitcase beside him. 

“Ready?” Dan asked, his hand resting on his own bags. 

Phil nodded and closed the door.

Dan reached a hand and Phil took it and they smiled at each other.

When they walked away, they didn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The feeling of finishing a fic is something that's bot relieving and sad and a little daunting. What will I write next? Will it be any good? Was this one any good? I guess we'll all see.   
> So okay. I want to write more (I always want to write more) but I don't know what to write! I have a few ideas but I want to try out new pairings and stuff. If anyone has any ideas for either a pairing or an AU or something, let me know!! I'd love to hear your thoughts :)  
> Thank you all so so much for reading this whole thing!! It really meant a lot to me to get your kudos and comments. Whenever I was feeling down, I would reread what you guys said about this and it was so nice and comforting to read omg so THANK YOU!!   
> If i'm not writing anything you can come yell at me on tumblr @phailingphantastically and i'll try and write something lmao   
> so once again, THANK YOU for reading!! It means a lot!! Hope you have a good day!!

**Author's Note:**

> Hmmm?? Thoughts??  
> If you'd like, leave me a comment telling me what you thought, and kudos are always appreciated!  
> Like I said, I'll try to update every week, but again, no promises. I have a few chapters already written, so hopefully I won't get too far behind. Thanks again for reading!  
> My tumblr is phailingphantastically if you'd like to drop by and say hello!


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